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Strategic Leadership And Executive

Strategic Management Journal
Strat. Mgmt. J., 26: 665–682 (2005) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/smj.469

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AND EXECUTIVE INNOVATION INFLUENCE: AN INTERNATIONAL MULTI-CLUSTER COMPARATIVE STUDY
DETELIN S. ELENKOV,1 * WILLIAM JUDGE1 and PETER WRIGHT2
1 College of Business Administration, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.A. 2 Fogelman College of Business of Economics, University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A.

This study investigates the relationship of strategic leadership behaviors with executive innovation influence and the moderating effects of top management team (TMT)’s tenure heterogeneity and social culture on that relationship. Using survey data from six countries comprising three social cultures, strategic leadership behaviors were found to have a strong positive relationship with executive influence on both product–market and administrative innovations. In addition, TMT tenure heterogeneity moderated the relationship of strategic leadership behaviors with executive innovation influence for both types of innovation, while social culture moderated that relationship only in the case of administrative innovation. Copyright  2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Strategic leadership and innovation strategy are crucial for achieving and maintaining strategic competitiveness in the 21st century (Ireland and Hitt, 1999). Strategic leaders have been repeatedly recognized for their critical role in recognizing opportunities and making decisions that affect innovation processes (Drucker, 1985; Finkelstein and Hambrick, 1996; Quinn, 1985). Strategic leaders’ opportunity recognition and exploitation add considerable business value (Yukl, 1998). The interactions between leadership and innovation variables have attracted increasing attention in empirical studies (e.g., Halbesleben et al., 2003; Kets De Vries, 1996; Sharma and Rai, 2003; Tierney, Farmer, and Graen, 1999; West et...