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The practice of corporate chief executive officer (CEOs) engaging in sociopolitical activism on issues both related and unrelated to their companies is gaining attention in the popular press and among management scholars. The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents and motivations of CEO sociopolitical activism in a typology of influences internal and external to the CEO and to the organization. This study’s typology highlights the need for greater understanding of CEOs’ sociopolitical activism for the CEO as an individual actor and for the company they represent.

This study’s approach is to conceptually review the literature on CEO activism and to create a theoretic framework for future analysis of the antecedents and motivations and ramifications of CEOs’ sociopolitical activism for the CEO as an individual actor and for the company they represent. The author highlights four theories and seeks future application of these theories to the phenomena in a typology.

The typology highlights the application of management theories to various ramifications of CEO activism to four influences on CEO activities. Upper echelons theory helps explain the motivation of a CEO internally, whereas agency theory applies to CEO activism internal to the CEO and external to the organizational operations. External to the CEO, organizational culture theory supports responses internal to the organization, and stakeholder theory provides insight into responses external to the CEO and the organization.

This study provides conceptual support for the study of CEO activism and encourages future research on the topic.

While qualitative work has a long tradition in the strategy field and has recently regained popularity, we have not paused to take stock of how such work offers contributions. We address this oversight with a review of qualitative studies of strategy published in five top-tier journals over an extended period of 15 years (2003–2017). In an attempt to organize the field, we develop an empirically grounded organizing framework. We identify 12 designs that are evident in the literature, or “designs-in-use” as we call them. Acknowledging important similarities and differences between the various approaches to qualitative strategy research (QSR), we group these designs into three “families” based on their philosophical orientation. We use these designs and families to identify trends in QSR. We then engage those trends to orient the future development of qualitative methods in the strategy field.

Whereas most societal commentators continue to review the historical patterns of men’s leadership in search of models for 21st-century success, few have begun to recognize, let alone appreciate, the equivalent patterns of women’s leadership and the future contributions that women could potentially make as leaders. What could and are women bringing to society as global leaders? Why at this moment in history is there such a marked increase in the number of women leaders? Are we entering an era in which both male and female leaders will shape history, both symbolically and in reality? And if so, will we discover that women, on average, lead in different ways than men, or will we learn that role (global leader) explains more than gender? This chapter reveals the accelerating trends of women joining men in senior leadership positions, establishes the relationship of women leaders to our overall understanding of global leadership, and sets forth an agenda to accomplish much needed research and understanding.