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The purpose of this article is to define the use of interim executives in the workplace.

A thought leadership approach is adopted for this article.

The article describes the common misconceptions, potential pitfalls and the benefits of hiring an interim executive.

At a time of changing work practices, economic and political uncertainty, organisations require help, without delay. This article offers an interim management solution as a way of assisting organisations to transform.

Interim leaders often have little advance notice of their new assignments. Yet, they must skillfully lead their organizations, provide stability for staff and continue the direction of the mission and vision in a time of change. In addition, temporary leaders – often termed interim executive directors or interim chief executive officers (CEOs) – are frequently asked to guide the transition for a new and permanent leader.

This qualitative study presents the insights of 24 interim leaders, largely in the Chattanooga, Tennessee (TN) region, who participated in individual virtual interviews and a subsequent virtual focus group to address a protocol of questions concerned with all phases of carrying out the interim position.

The findings confirmed existing literature on how the interim was selected, the responsibilities of this leader and the costs and benefits for the organization of using an interim and extended findings with guidance for interim over their tenure.

The findings uncovered new insights into personal and career growth, along with unexpected personal and professional enrichment and satisfaction from the experience. The practical implications include providing detailed guidelines for interim leaders at each stage of their tenure, which can help them navigate the complexities of their roles more effectively. Additionally, the findings highlight the potential for significant personal and professional growth, offering interim leaders unexpected enrichment and satisfaction from their experiences.

The exploratory research validated the existing literature on interim leadership and added additional detail in practical guidance for beginning an interim position, carrying out the interim position and even ending the position. This study delineates practical guidelines at each stage of the interim lifecycle for both the temporary leader and the organization and provides areas for future research. Qualitative findings also identified key characteristics of an interim leader. This study also includes discussion of the political implications of interim CEOs.

The study presents original insights into the role of interim leaders by combining qualitative data from 24 participants in the Chattanooga, TN region with existing literature, thereby enhancing understanding of the challenges and successes these leaders face. It confirms previous findings regarding interim leadership and provides practical guidelines for navigating the interim lifecycle, highlighting aspects of personal growth and satisfaction that have not been extensively explored in prior research.

There is no previous systematic and theoretical investigation of the interim CEO succession practice. This research attempts to fill the gap by studying this phenomenon and hence advance executive succession research/practice.

Based on agency theory, the authors propose a model and several propositions to predict what determines the origin of interim CEOs, the length of the interim tenure, and the career prospects for the interim CEO after the interim tenure.

Both firm performance and environmental uncertainty play an important role in the dynamic interim CEO succession process.

The paper provides the foundations for future empirical research on interim CEO succession.

Board members at companies experiencing sudden CEO departures should choose a loyal non‐aggressive veteran to be the interim CEO so as to minimize disruption and to smooth the transition. They should use caution when choosing an internal candidate because if such a candidate is not chosen to be the permanent CEO later, a talent may be lost.

The research is the first to systematically examine the phenomenon of interim CEOs. The authors make a unique contribution to the literature on CEO succession.

This paper reviews literature on interim leadership and management through the lens of effective interim performance. The purpose of this review is to advance understanding of interim assignment performance and the antecedent individual psychological characteristics of effective interim leaders and managers, to improve the practice of managing interim leaders from a human resources (HR) perspective.

The paper reports a targeted review of the literature on interim leadership and management.

The main proposition from this review is that the influence of individual factors on interim performance operates within the stages and contexts of assignments. Accordingly, the authors propose a framework of the demands on interim assignments (the interim assignment cycle), comprising stages of preparation, entry, delivery and exit. The paper subsequently reviews evidence of the potential individual characteristics (focussing on individual differences in personality, leadership approach, motivation and competencies) of effective preparation and entry to an assignment, actions and performance during an assignment and exit/disengagement.

The findings of the review have implications for the selection and placement of interims into organizations and their management once appointed.

The main original contribution of the paper is to provide a framework around which interim assignments can be modelled and better understood. The paper discusses implications for future research, theory and human resource management practice and calls for a renewed research effort in this critical area of management and leadership.

Jan Didrichsen draws on his own experience to explain the role of an interim chief executive.

The purpose of this study is to carry out a literature review on interim leadership and management focusing on interim assignment performance and the antecedent characteristics of effective interim leaders.

A targeted review of the literature on the literature on interim leadership and management is carried out and reported.

A cycle of interim assignments is proposed consisting of four stages, preparation, entry, delivery and exit. Individual characteristics seen as antecedents of effectiveness are then applied to each of these stages.

The interim assignment cycle proposed in this paper can help to address gaps in the literature and aid the development of methods and tools for selection of interims and management of effectiveness during assignments.

This paper has an original approach in providing a model through which interim assignments can be better understood.

Examines the progress of interim management over the last five years. Presents key statistics to show that the size of the market for interim managers has doubled and that the technique has gained greater recognition. Considers threats to the continuation of this growth.

In this paper, we problematize the prevailing assumptions in the executive coaching literature that effective coaching is deliberative, trust-based and relational in nature, thereby requiring significant time investment before the focal leader might realize enacted benefits from the coaching. Contrary to these prevailing assumptions, we propose five contingencies wherein a more direct, performance-first approach to coaching may be more effective.

This conceptual paper reviews relevant literature to develop testable propositions regarding directive coaching contingencies.

We develop propositions that argue executive coaches will need to employ a more directive, urgent and accountable coaching relationship when the executive's career is in jeopardy, the organization is in distress, if the leader needs to signal legitimacy, if the coaching occurs within the boundaries of a high reliability organization or if the coach is working with an executive who has interim status.

This paper intends to advance the theory and practice of executive coaching by challenging executive coaching orthodoxy regarding the need for a deliberative, relational approach to coaching. Future research should broaden this theorizing and empirically test our propositions.

The authors investigate whether the different tenure phases of executives have a differential effect on audit pricing. Two alternate views – career concern and power – can explain the effect of executives’ tenure on audit pricing. This paper aims to determine, which viewpoint dominates in explaining the relationship between audit pricing and executive tenure phases.

Using a sample of 11,198 firm-year observations from 2007 to 2016, the authors adopt an ordinary least squares regression model to assess the impact of the middle and long phases of executives’ tenure on audit fees.

Audit fees are significantly lower when executives enter the middle and long phases of tenure. The reduction in audit fees is greatest as both chief executive officers and chief financial officers enter the long tenure phase. Although audit fees gradually decrease as executive tenure is extended, they start increasing two years before the end of executive tenure. Furthermore, the negative association between the executive tenure phase and audit fees is greater when the executive is appointed externally. Finally, the long phase of executive tenure also mitigates the positive relationship between audit fees and internal control weaknesses.

This study is based on US data. Future research may extend this study to other countries.

The findings are important to firms, practitioners and academicians, particularly, as the length of tenure of top executives has increased in recent years. By documenting that executives’ middle and long tenure phases reduce audit fees, the findings highlight the importance of maintaining executives in the firm. Finally, the findings have implications for investors, policymakers and auditors to identify companies with high audit risk.

This study is the first to document the impact of executives’ middle and long tenure phases on audit fees.