On the Strategic Relationship between Leadership and Innovation in US Firms
Year: 2021
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Leadership is one of the most important factors in organizational success. Innovation is another of most important factors in organizational success. Leaders play a pivotal role in the innovation capabilities of organizations. One of the most important areas in Leadership Studies (LS) is the association between leadership style and the firm's innovation performance, but a lack of understanding and consensus still remains as a major issue. This research aims to address the research gap by reviewing the empirical literature and determining how the ambidextrous leadership (transactional and transformational) styles in top level U.S. management (CEOs) are related with firm ambidextrous innovation (exploitative and exploratory) performance in ambidextrous US firms. This research employs a survey instrument, based on established research, to employees of U.S. companies and ask them about their perception of their respective CEO's and the degree of innovation in their firm. We control for variables such as organizational size and how long they have been in operation. Ultimately, leadership has often been seen as a linear model and often based on one style of leadership, however we seek to understand when certain types of leadership can help over other types for particular types of innovation, and how certain types of innovation may call for certain types of leadership.
Author: Shabeer Kirmani
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3194797132