CEO Empowering Leadership and Corporate Entrepreneurship: The Roles of TMT Information Elaboration and Environmental Dynamism

Zhengfei Li; Huangen Chen; Qiuying Ma; Haibo Li

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.671232

CEO Empowering Leadership and Corporate Entrepreneurship: The Roles of TMT Information Elaboration and Environmental Dynamism

Front Psychol. 2021 Jul 15:12:671232. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.671232. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Zhengfei Li¹, Huangen Chen², Qiuying Ma³, Haibo Li⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Economics, Shandong University, Jinan, China.
² School of Business Administration, Faculty of Business Administration, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, China.
³ Department of Economics, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
⁴ Institute of Science and Technology for Development of Shandong, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, China.

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) empowering leadership and corporate entrepreneurship. In addition, the mediating role of information elaboration in top management teams (TMTs) and the moderating role of environmental dynamism are examined. Drawing on the information exchange/sharing perspective, we hypothesize that CEO empowering leadership has a positive effect on corporate entrepreneurship, and TMT information elaboration mediates the relationship above. Furthermore, we find that environmental dynamism positively moderates the relationship between empowering leadership and information elaboration, and negatively moderates the relationship between information elaboration and corporate entrepreneurship. Data from a sample of Chinese firms provide empirical evidence in support of these hypotheses.

Keywords: corporate entrepreneurship; empowering leadership; environmental dynamism; information elaboration; top management teams.