The Research On Strategic Leadership Characteristics And Its Effect On Corporate Strategy Choice And Performance

The effect of strategic leadership on organizational performance has been a hot topic of research for decades, but the results have been inconclusive. Researchers of strategic choice theory argue that strategic leaders are critical to organizational effectiveness, while others of Organization Evolution theory emphasize environmental factors on organizational performance. But the general consensus has been reached in recent years:strategic leadership is essential in business growth and development in the complex and increasingly competitive environment.Although the role of strategic leadership has been recognized, many problems of how strategic leadership affect the organizational performance have not yet fully developed, such as the key features of the strategic leadership,the time when strategic leadership affect, the way how they affect and the contingency factors influence on the mechanism of strategic leadership, and so on.The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the relationship between characteristics of strategic leadership and organizational effectiveness, including personality and behavior characteristics, and to investigate the moderating effects of situational uncertainty and the mediating role of managerial discretion.Research on strategic leadership theory from home and abroad the latest research results, meaning the leadership of corporate strategy systems analysis and research schools, in the nature and role of strategic leadership to fully review and analysis of the mechanism proposed based on the characteristics of a strategic leadership as independent variables, including strategic leadership personality traits (controlled orientation, need for achievement, risk propensity and narcissistic tendencies) and strategic leadership characteristics; to business strategic performance as the dependent variable; to strategic choice for the intermediate variables; to Management Discretion, Environmental Uncertainty strategic leadership for the regulation mechanism of variable theoretical model, based on the theory to the theoretical assumptions in order to verify through empirical research all of the interactions between elements.Using the statistical sampling methods, the investigation covers enterprise of different industries in 12 provinces and cities. The most senior strategic leaders of enterprise, the Chairman/General Manager, conducted the survey. A total of 358 questionnaires were issued, the actual recovery of 194 copies of which 152 of valid questionnaires. Statistical methods included descriptive statistics, factor analysis, correlation analysis, hierarchical regression analysis, adjusted regression analysis and intermediate regression analysis.The conclusion showed:(1) Different personality characteristics of strategic leaders lead to different strategic performance. Strategic leaders with internal locus of control, high need for achievement, high risk propensity and narcissistic tendencies help improve the strategic performance, the external locus of control had no obvious effect on corporate strategic performance. (2) Strategic leaders with different personality have different preferences of corporate strategy choice. Internal locus of control, high-risk orientation and high narcissistic tendency prefer to choose the Prospector strategy; Strategic leaders with external locus of control, low-risk and low-narcissistic tendencies tend to choose Defender strategy; As Analyzer strategy have both the features of Defender and Prospector, this type of strategy was carried out by internal locus of control, high need for achievement, high-risk orientation and high narcissistic tendencies. (3) Strategic choice has strong relationship with strategic performance. In case of ignoring the effect of contingency factors, the Prospector and the Analyzer strategies are helpful for performance improvement, while the Defender strategy is negatively correlated with corporate strategic performance. (4) The strategic leadership characteristics not only enhance or have direct impact on the corporate strategic performance significantly, but also moderate the relationship between strategic choice and strategic performance. (5) Strategic choice is mediator between personality of strategic leaders and strategic performance. (6) Environmental characteristics fits with strategic leadership and strategic choice will improve the strategic performance. (7) Managerial Discretion is comprehensive and complex factor which affect the role of strategic leadership, the role of managerial discretion should be further studied.Innovations are:(1) This paper proposed and validated the theoretical model of strategic leadership, by which the strategic leadership characteristics as independent variables, the strategic performance as the dependent variable, the strategic choice as the mediator, the managerial discretion, environmental uncertainty and strategic leadership behavior characteristics as mediator variables. This theoretical model enrich the strategic choice theory and strategic leadership theory.(2) This paper takes personality characteristics of strategic leader as observed variables substituting the demographic characteristics and background variables, which is the most useful variables of Upper Echelons Theory. This variables change will propose and validate on the strategic choice theory and Upper Echelons Theory for new way of thinking and high-level theoretical results and stability of validity. The study also provide theoretical support to selection of the appropriate strategic leaders in business practice.(3) This paper takes strategic leadership behavior as mediator variables between strategic choice and strategic performance analysis framework and verifies its role. This explain the why strategic choice sometime can not lead to good performance and provide a new perspective to understand the comprehensive strategic leadership mechanisms in theory and practice.(4) This paper takes Managerial Discretion as mediator variables between personality characteristics of strategic leaders and strategic performance analysis framework, to explain how many "latitude of action" the strategic leaders have and it's affect on strategic leader's role in strategic management. Although the empirical results did not support the theoretical hypothesis, but the result found the Managerial Discretion's multidimensional nature of complexity and difficulty of measurement. The study results suggest the further study for Managerial Discretion.