Understanding managerial behavior and its underlying motivations is of key interest in times where the role of business in society is generally viewed critically. While CEO influence on strategy making processes is almost undisputed, little attention has explicitly been paid to how CEO values and the characteristics of the top management team (TMT) interact in shaping corporate strategy making. This is surprising if one follows the assumption that top managers who work closely together will by necessity influence each other’s actions. Hence, we would expect the CEO-TMT interface to be vital in understanding how leadership influences strategy making. To address this, we propose a model in which the personal values of the CEO have a direct effect on the characteristics of corporate strategy making processes yet where this association is moderated by TMT diversity. We test the model with data from Austria and Germany obtained through a large-scale survey conducted in spring 2015 and a follow-up survey conducted in fall 2015 and find general support for our model. CEO values geared towards self-transcendence (as opposed to self-interest) seem to be associated with more formal strategy making processes, while values geared towards openness to change (as opposed to conservation) are found to be associated with more flexible and less externally open ones. TMT diversity moderates all of these relationships. Our results add to upper echelon theory as well as to strategy process research and highlight promising avenues for future research.

中文翻译：

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CEO价值观和TMT多样性如何共同影响公司战略制定流程

在通常以批判性方式看待企业在社会中的作用的时代，了解管理行为及其潜在动机是至关重要的。尽管CEO对战略制定流程的影响几乎是无可争议的，但对于CEO价值观和高层管理团队（TMT）的特征在制定公司战略制定过程中如何相互作用的关注却很少。如果人们遵循这样一种假设，那就是令人惊讶，那就是紧密合作的高级管理人员必然会影响彼此的行动。因此，我们希望CEO-TMT界面对于理解领导力如何影响战略制定至关重要。为了解决这个问题，我们提出了一个模型，在该模型中，CEO的个人价值观对公司战略制定流程的特征具有直接影响，而这种关联却受TMT多样性控制。我们使用从2015年春季进行的大规模调查和2015年秋季进行的后续调查获得的奥地利和德国的数据对模型进行了测试，并为模型提供了一般支持。面向自我超越（而非自我利益）的CEO价值观似乎与更正式的战略制定流程相关联，而面向变革开放（而非保护）的价值观与更灵活，外部性更低相关开放的。TMT多样性缓解了所有这些关系。