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This paper aims to introduce the concept of top management team (TMT) regulatory focus to explain the differences in executive motivation. Upper echelons research has demonstrated that top managers’ willingness to deviate from their current strategies is a key determinant of organizational success. However, it is not clear why some TMTs are motivated to embrace strategic change while others are motivated to favor the strategic status quo.

Recent work in the psychology of motivation is used to develop a conceptual model explaining how the regulatory focus of TMTs can impact their outlooks toward strategic change.

It is theorized that there is a positive (negative) relationship between promotion (prevention)-focused TMTs and strategic change. It is also theorized that executives’ performance aspirations, firm maturity and the stability of the environment will influence the relationship between regulatory focus and strategic change.

Although the theoretical explanations provided by past research on top manager motivation are psychological in their general focus, with few exceptions research has not sought to understand the specific deep-level, socio-cognitive characteristics that shape executives’ perceptions of strategic change. By developing an understanding of the psychological determinants of strategic change, as well as the interplay between these determinants and firm- and environment-level factors, this paper represents a step in the direction of explaining why some TMTs are motivated to embrace strategic change while others seem “locked-in” to the status quo.

By taking a social learning perspective, this study examines the trickle-down effect of empowering leadership across hierarchical levels in an organization. Specifically, this study aims to demonstrate that the empowering leadership of higher-level leaders promotes the task performance of employees through the mediation of the empowering leadership of lower-level leaders. It also seeks to confirm the role of performance pressure as a boundary condition in social learning process.

Under a moderated mediation framework, this study tests our hypotheses through a hierarchical regression analysis. The data used in the analysis is from the survey responses of 209 subordinate-supervisor dyads.

This study finds that the empowering leadership of higher-level leaders promotes the empowering leadership of lower-level leaders, which indirectly improves the task performance of employees. It also finds that performance pressure perceived by lower-level leaders moderates the relationship between the empowering leadership of higher- and lower-level leaders, thus moderating the proposed indirect effect.

This study complements the findings of previous studies by identifying the trickle-down effect of empowering leadership across different hierarchical levels in an organization and by highlighting its boundary condition. In addition, this study provides evidence for the presence of trickle-down effect of leadership in an Eastern culture.

This study suggests the necessity of leadership education and training programs within organizations by revealing the importance of social learning process for promoting empowering leadership. In addition, it also suggests that performance pressure in an organization not only dampens empowering leadership but also has a negative effect on the task performance of employees.

This study demonstrates the influence mechanism of empowering leadership through a systematic verification of its trickle-down effect, which has been lacking in previous studies. It also highlights the moderating role of performance pressure, as a contextual factor, in the social learning and influence process of empowering leadership.