Strategic leaders and strategy

The research theme of Strategic leaders and strategy explores the impact of strategic leaders—CEOs, top management teams, corporate boards, and private firm owners—on firms' strategy, behavioural orientations, and performance. Researchers examine, for example, how performance feedback induces deviant versus aspirational risk-taking behaviour, how board chairs’ political ideology influences a firm’s innovation activity, how the origin and private life of CEOs impact firm outcomes, and how childhood adversity and disrupted education affect would-be business owners’ propensity for entrepreneurship.

Our researchers

Featured publications

• Baghdadi, G. A., Safiullah, M. & Heyden, M. L. M., 2023. Do gender-diverse boards enhance managerial ability? Journal of Corporate Finance, 79, 102364.
• Churchill, S. A., Hayward, M., Smyth, R. & Trinh, T-A. 2023. Crime, community social capital and entrepreneurship: evidence from Australian communities. Journal of Business Venturing, 38, 2, 106291.
• Heyden, M. L. M., Gu, J., Wechtler, H. M. & Ekanayake, U. I. K., 2023. The face of wrongdoing? An expectancy violations perspective on CEO facial characteristics and media coverage of misconducting firms. Leadership Quarterly, 34, 3, 101671.
• Van Doorn, S., Heyden, M. L. M. & Reimer, M. 2023. The private life of CEOs; A strategic leadership perspective. Leadership Quarterly, 34, 1, 101679.
• Xu, D., Zhou, K. Z. & Chen, S. 2023. The impact of communist ideology on the patenting activity of Chinese firms. Academy of Management Journal, 66, 1, p. 102-132.
• Georgakakis, D., Heyden, M. L. M., Oehmichen, J. D. R. & Ekanayake, U. I. K. 2022. Four decades of CEO–TMT interface research: a review inspired by role theory. Leadership Quarterly, 33, 3, 101354.
• Hu, H. W. & Xu, D. 2022. Manager or politician? Effects of CEO pay on the performance of state-controlled Chinese listed firms. Journal of Management, 48, 5, p. 1160-1187.
• Li, A. 2022. Preemptive or promotive: The differential impact of strategic leaders’ political connections on firm long-term investment in China. Long Range Planning, 55(3), 102158.
• Li, A., & Sullivan, B. N. 2022. Blind to the future: Exploring the contingent effect of managerial hubris on strategic foresight. Strategic Organization, 20(3), 565-599.
• Matthews, L., Heyden, M. L. M. & Zhou, D. 2022. Paradoxical transparency? Capital market responses to exploration and exploitation disclosure. Research Policy, 51, 1, 104396.
• Asgari, E., Hunt, R. A., Lerner, D. A., Townsend, D. M., Hayward, M. L. A. & Kiefer, K. 2021. Red giants or black holes? The antecedent conditions and multi-level impacts of star performers. Academy of Management Annals, 15, 1, p. 223-265.
• Cheng, Z., Guo, W., Hayward, M., Smyth, R. & Wang, H. 2021. Childhood adversity and the propensity for entrepreneurship: a quasi-experimental study of the Great Chinese Famine. Journal of Business Venturing, 36, 1, 106063.
• Fu, L., Boehe, D., & Orlitzky, M. 2020. Are R&D-intensive firms also corporate social responsibility specialists? A multicountry study. Research Policy, 49, 8.
• Xu, D., Zhou, K. Z. & Du, F. 2019. Deviant versus aspirational risk taking: the effects of performance feedback on bribery expenditure and R&D intensity. Academy of Management Journal, 62, 4, p. 1226-1251.
• Heyden, M. L. M., Sidhu, J. S. & Volberda, H. W. 2018. The conjoint influence of top and middle management characteristics on management innovation. Journal of Management, 44, 4, p. 1505-1529.
• Reimer, M., Van Doorn, S. & Heyden, M. L. M. 2018. Unpacking functional experience complementarities in senior leaders’ influences on CSR strategy: a CEO–top management team approach. Journal of Business Ethics, 151, 4, p. 977-995.

Watch, listen, read

• Why wicked CEOs prevail: Dark personality traits of the executive suite, Impact Monash Business School, 2019.