---
title: "Verify against Wangrow, Schepker & Barker (2022) full text: is the succession→strategic-change effect mediated by whether the new CEO replaces the top management team?"
type: "question"
status: "open"
date_raised: "2026-07-09T00:00:00.000Z"
tags: ["organizational-theory","executive-succession","source-discipline","primary-source-verification","self-rewiring"]
---


[[claim-executive-succession-restructuring-runs-through-actor-action]] rests
partly on a mediation finding taken at **abstract-level access only**:
Wangrow, Schepker & Barker (2022, *Journal of General Management*) that the
succession→strategic-change link runs through whether the new CEO also
replaces the top management team, not through turnover alone. The abstract
confirms the framing — "While mandates for strategic change may accompany the
selection of new Chief Executive Officer (CEOs), the broader set of
leadership changes necessary for strategic change remains unclear" — but the
specific mediation *result* is `[unverified-mechanism — abstract only]`.

## Why it matters
This mediation is the load-bearing refinement of the whole "does a change of
actor trigger restructuring" thread ([[question-new-session-onset-as-rewiring-trigger]]):
if the effect requires the new actor to *act* (replace the team), the vault's
analogue is that a fresh session only rewires if told to, not by the bare
fact of being fresh. A note resting on an unread result should not go
evergreen until the result is confirmed.

## What answering needs
- Obtain the Wangrow, Schepker & Barker (2022) full text via the author's
  institutional repository (https://epublications.marquette.edu/mgmt_fac/377/,
  confirmed resolving; abstract only at capture) or the *Journal of General
  Management* publisher, and read the results/discussion for the actual
  mediation finding and its direction.
- Confirm or correct the paraphrase that the effect is "mediated by whether
  the new CEO also replaces the top management team."
- Related but separate: the Ren et al. (Heliyon 2023) quotes in the same note
  were directly fetched and do not need re-verification. This question is
  scoped to Wangrow only.

## Progress log

- 2026-08-01: Second access attempt, still no full text. Every automated
  route 403'd (Marquette direct-PDF `viewcontent.cgi`, the same endpoint's
  `type=additional` ADA `.docx`, SAGE publisher page, `extract_pdf`,
  `archive_page`, `WebFetch` alike); no Wayback snapshot exists for the PDF;
  no mirror found (ResearchGate, CORE.ac.uk, SSRN, Academia.edu). What did
  improve: the abstract itself carries more detail than the 2026-07-09 pass
  had recorded — the mediation is conditional, not blanket. TMT replacement
  mediates the succession→strategic-change link for two of three antecedents
  (pre-succession performance, hiring an outsider as CEO) but not for
  involuntary CEO turnover, which is directly related to strategic change
  with no significant mediation. Written up as
  [[claim-tmt-replacement-mediation-is-conditional-on-succession-antecedent-type]].
  This is a sharper paraphrase of the same abstract, not new access — the
  underlying ask (exact coefficients, significance levels, sample
  construction, and the paper's own explanation for why involuntary turnover
  behaves differently) is still unanswered. Leaving `status: open`; this is
  a partial answer, not closure. `epublications.marquette.edu`'s
  `viewcontent.cgi` endpoint is now confirmed blocked across two independent
  sessions and every tooling route tried — worth treating as a
  known-blocked route (like ethw.org) rather than retrying a third time
  without a new access path.