TY - JOUR
T1 - Benefiting from CEO's empowerment of TMTs
T2 - Does CEO-TMT dissimilarity matter?
AU - Ling, Yan
AU - Wei, Liqun
AU - Klimoski, Richard J.
AU - Wu, Longzeng
N1 - Acknowledgements: We would like to acknowledge Michael Lubatkin, David Kravitz, and Kevin Rockmann for their generous help on earlier versions of this paper. Our thanks also go to the Associate Editor, Shelley Dionne, and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. Thanks for the financial support of Strategic Development Fund of School of Business, HKBU and General Research Fund of HKSAR (HKBU292513) to the second author.
PY - 2015/12
Y1 - 2015/12
N2 - This study examines empowering leadership from an upper echelons perspective by focusing on top management teams (TMTs) and considering the demographic dissimilarities between the CEO and other TMT members. Data from a multisource survey of 129 Chinese firms demonstrate the importance of the fit between the backgrounds of the leader and the TMT members. Although empowerment of TMTs by CEOs predicts superior organizational performance in general, the findings show that this practice is most beneficial when the CEO and the TMT members differ in their informational demographics but have a longer tenure overlap. If either dissimilarity in informational demographics or tenure overlap is lacking, the CEO's empowerment of the TMT has a less positive effect on firm performance. Essentially, a three-way interaction is demonstrated. Introducing boundary conditions for the empowerment of TMTs by CEOs and testing their interactive influence broadens our understanding of how CEO leadership style can affect organizational performance, and refines the guidance for practitioners on TMT management.
AB - This study examines empowering leadership from an upper echelons perspective by focusing on top management teams (TMTs) and considering the demographic dissimilarities between the CEO and other TMT members. Data from a multisource survey of 129 Chinese firms demonstrate the importance of the fit between the backgrounds of the leader and the TMT members. Although empowerment of TMTs by CEOs predicts superior organizational performance in general, the findings show that this practice is most beneficial when the CEO and the TMT members differ in their informational demographics but have a longer tenure overlap. If either dissimilarity in informational demographics or tenure overlap is lacking, the CEO's empowerment of the TMT has a less positive effect on firm performance. Essentially, a three-way interaction is demonstrated. Introducing boundary conditions for the empowerment of TMTs by CEOs and testing their interactive influence broadens our understanding of how CEO leadership style can affect organizational performance, and refines the guidance for practitioners on TMT management.
KW - CEOs
KW - Dissimilarity
KW - Empowerment
KW - Organizational performance
KW - Top management teams
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84940062206&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.07.006
DO - 10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.07.006
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84940062206
SN - 1048-9843
VL - 26
SP - 1066
EP - 1079
JO - Leadership Quarterly
JF - Leadership Quarterly
IS - 6
ER -