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Top management team diversity and organizational characteristics of banks in Russia
Background: Several worldwide studies demonstrate that the diversity of a top management team (TMT) depends on the organizational characteristics of business organizations. Though this topic has been studied in different countries, it is not well researched in Russia, especially for some industries, including the banking sector. The main purpose of the research is to study diversity of TMTs of banks in Russia and investigate if it depends on banks’ organizational characteristics. Methods: Data on top management team characteristics is collected for 178 banks (32% of banks operating in Russia). The data includes age, gender, citizenship, education, functional expertise, and work experience of the team members. In addition, data on organizational characteristics of banks was collected from their websites, including size, ownership, type of business, and number of years of operation in Russia. The variance coefficient, which demonstrates the level of TMT diversity, was calculated for all TMT members of each bank. Correlation analysis between TMT diversity and organizational characteristics of banks was completed in SPSS software. Results: The calculated variance coefficient for different top management characteristics shows that TMTs in the Russian banking sector are mostly homogeneous (in terms of age, gender, nationality and previous work experience). TMTs are only diverse in terms of educational background and functional expertise. The research also shows that TMT diversity metrics correlate with some organizational characteristics, including capital concentration, type of ownership, and nationality of capital (international or local). There is no correlation of TMT diversity with type of banking business and headcount. Conclusions: It can be surmised that boards of directors of banks in Russia should appoint more diverse TMTs to achieve higher organizational outcomes. Nevertheless, this should be researched further, and the authors recommend studying the impact of TMT diversity on bank performance in Russia.