Advanced
search

To read this content please select one of the options below:

Linking CEO relationship-focused leadership and corporate entrepreneurship: a multilevel moderated mediation model

Yueyue Liu (School of Business, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China)
Meng Xi (School of Business, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China)
Feifei Li (Information Industry Development Research Institute, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, China and School of Management, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, China)
Xiulin Geng (School of Business, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China)

Chinese Management Studies

ISSN: 1750-614X

Article publication date: 5 July 2021

Issue publication date: 16 September 2021

622

Abstract

Purpose

Corporate entrepreneurship is an important way for organizations to gain competitive advantages and achieve sustainable development. However, few studies pay attention to the influence of CEO strategic leadership on corporate entrepreneurship. Drawing on social identity theory and uncertainty-identity theory, this study aims to investigate whether CEO relationship-focused leadership impacts corporate entrepreneurship through middle managers’ (MMs’) organizational identification and whether the indirect effect is moderated by environmental uncertainty.

Design/methodology/approach

Using 192 Chinese samples with 192 firm-level and 716 department-level observations, this study uses multilevel structural equations modeling by Mplus 8.0 to test the theoretical model.

Findings

This study finds that CEO relationship-focused leadership positively predicts MMs’ organizational identification and corporate entrepreneurship, and MMs’ organizational identification mediates the relationship between CEO relationship-focused leadership and corporate entrepreneurship. In addition, environmental uncertainty moderates not only the relationship between CEO relationship-focused leadership and MMs’ organizational identification but also the indirect effect of CEO relationship-focused leadership on corporate entrepreneurship through MMs’ organizational identification.

Research limitations/implications

This study enriches the understanding of process and contextualization of CEO strategic leadership influencing on corporate entrepreneurship.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to explore the influence of CEO relationship-focused leadership on corporate entrepreneurship.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors appreciated that the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71802106, 71832007) and MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Science (No. 18YJC630201) supported this study.

Citation

Liu, Y., Xi, M., Li, F. and Geng, X. (2021), "Linking CEO relationship-focused leadership and corporate entrepreneurship: a multilevel moderated mediation model", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 940-958. https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-08-2020-0353

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles

Manage cookies

We’re listening — tell us what you think

Join us on our journey