Two major themes in the upper echelon decision making literature are the efficacy of the CEO and the composition of the top management team (TMT). Little research has examined their intersection. This study addresses the call to reveal the social processes within TMTs, by focusing on CEO-TMT member interaction in decision making. Drawing on video ethnographic data of two TMTs, we explore the patterns of interactions between CEOs and TMT members in their strategic decision making meetings. Through an analysis of 20 issue discussions, we identify five “constellations”, a team level construct capturing the core relational dynamics that are created through mutual CEO-TMT member influence during a team's discussion of a strategic issue. We explain how these constellations unfold and their implications for the processes and outcomes of TMT strategic decision making. We then elaborate how our findings contribute to the TMT and upper echelon literatures, as well as our understanding of team politics.

高层决策文献中的两个主要主题是 CEO 的效能和高层管理团队 (TMT) 的组成。很少有研究检查它们的交叉点。本研究通过关注 CEO-TMT 成员在决策制定中的互动，解决了揭示 TMT 内部社会过程的呼吁。利用两个 TMT 的视频民族志数据，我们探讨了 CEO 和 TMT 成员在战略决策会议中的互动模式。通过对 20 个问题讨论的分析，我们确定了五个“星座”，这是一个团队级别的结构，捕捉了团队讨论战略问题期间 CEO-TMT 成员相互影响所产生的核心关系动态。我们解释了这些星座是如何展开的，以及它们对 TMT 战略决策过程和结果的影响。然后，我们详细说明我们的研究结果如何有助于 TMT 和高层文献，以及我们对团队政治的理解。