Three essays on strategic leadership

This dissertation investigates understudied areas of strategic leadership by examining board directors’ responsibility management and top executive interactions. While research has established strategic leaders’ significance in organizational outcomes, knowledge gaps persist regarding directors’ behavioral patterns and executive interactions, primarily due to data constraints. Drawing on China’s regulatory environment, which requires detailed disclosures of director activities, this research offers insights into board operations and executive dynamics. The first study, analyzing 114,976 observations from 20,866 directors, finds that directors appointed before the CEO exhibit reduced involvement in routine tasks but increased participation in substantive matters such as preparing opinion reports and casting dissenting votes. Directors’ social network size further influences their board involvement, indicating deliberate management of governance roles. The second study focused on media attention effects on external directors through analysis of 164,416 media articles from Chinese stock exchanges. Results reveal media scrutiny’s dual impact: it reduces earnings manipulation while increasing corporate bribery, highlighting the nuanced consequences of public attention on corporate governance mechanisms. The third study examines CEO-TMT dynamics through interviews and surveys from 128 newly founded firms. Findings indicate that incongruence in growth-need strength between CEOs and top management teams negatively affects firm growth, via reducing CEO openness to TMT input, underscoring the importance of distinguishing CEO and TMT characteristics when analyzing firm performance. This dissertation advances understanding of strategic leadership by illuminating director behavior and executive team dynamics, while providing implications for corporate governance and organizational effectiveness.