The aim is to investigate certain spectral properties, such as decomposability, the spectral mapping property and the Lyubich-Matsaev property, for linear differential operators with constant coefficients ( and more general Fourier multiplier operators) acting in $L^p\left({ℝ}^N\right)$. The criteria developed for such operators are quite general and p-dependent, i.e. they hold for a range of p in an interval about 2 (which is typically not (1,∞)). The main idea is to construct appropriate functional calculi: this is...