A plethora of research exists on top management support and their support behaviors. There is a rising interest in how character in leadership impacts organizations, and the teams the top management of organizations lead. While competence has been the focus of traditional leadership theory, contemporary interest in leadership character is said to impact the sustainability of an organization. This research paper presents the support behavior of top management on strategic information technology projects, specifically drawing inferences to top management's character as leaders and their subsequent impact on project delivery teams. By conducting a literature review, this paper advances academic discourse on character and its influence on leadership and team dynamics. There is an abundance of literature on research into information technology projects. However, the research on top management support behaviors and furthermore character in leadership is limited in this discipline. This paper also highlights the practical consequences of neglecting character in leadership, while underscoring the value of cultivating character in leaders. To research this phenomenon, the researcher constructed in-depth semi-structured interviews with 15 participants who have experience across 12 sectors namely: Banking, Mining, Healthcare, Oil and gas, Consulting, Electrical equipment, Media, FMCG, Cybersecurity, Automotive, Aviation and Legal. Participants were directly engaged if they worked in or led delivery teams that had implemented strategic information technology projects and directly interacted with the top management related to the project. Drawing on participants' experience and opinions and using Gioia's framework the researcher established a data structure outlining four aggregate dimensions. The conceptual model is rebranded as the Enlightened Leader Mental Model allowing key themes to be connected. In this model, the four aggregate dimensions presented are used to leverage leadership behavior into leadership character. This builds on existing literature that focuses on top management support behavior and leadership character indicators. The researcher poses that behavior and character are so intertwined that to influence one will influence the other. Senior leaders set the tone on projects and have the power and influence to impact their delivery teams, positively or negatively. The researcher challenges human resource departments to focus on character development in organizational senior leadership structures. This paper fervently argues that character in leadership matters and that the way character is displayed, through observed behaviors, is what leaves a lasting impact on project teams.
This study explores how organizations successfully adopt and scale Artificial Intelligence (AI) across their operational processes, identifying the key factors influencing effective AI integration. Drawing on Dynamic Capabilities Theory (DCT), this research investigates strategic, organizational, and managerial dimensions critical to AI implementation. Through a qualitative approach utilizing podcast-based secondary data and employing positive deviance sampling, we analyzed insights from senior executives across diverse industries. The analysis yielded three central dimensions crucial for effective AI scaling: (1) Strategic Leadership and Governance, emphasizing executive prioritization, capability development, and ethical oversight; (2) Foundations for AI Adoption, highlighting the necessity of robust technical infrastructures, comprehensive data governance, and supportive organizational cultures, and practices that foster human interaction and knowledge sharing; and (3) Adaptive Implementation Approaches, reflecting the importance of agile methodologies, cross-functional collaboration, democratization of AI, and decentralized innovation. Our findings reveal that successful AI adoption is not merely a technical achievement but involves dynamic and iterative processes where organizations continuously sense opportunities, strategically allocate resources, and flexibly reconfigure internal capabilities. This study contributes to the literature by presenting a holistic framework that underscores the interplay of leadership, organizational readiness, and adaptive execution strategies, enabling organizations to effectively scale AI and achieve sustained competitive advantages. Managerially, this research provides actionable insights for organizational leaders seeking to strategically navigate AI transformation within their firms.
This study investigates the function of middle managers in subsidiaries of foreign multinational firms within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Utilizing agency theory, the resource-based approach, and institutional theory, we investigate the impact of strategic involvement, decision-making autonomy, and cultural intelligence on subsidiary performance, as well as the moderating effects of geographic and national cultural distance on these relationships. Data were gathered through a standardized survey administered to 404 middle managers in several businesses. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis reveals robust evidence for all proposed relationships: each managerial capability significantly enhances internationalization success, with these impacts intensified in geographically and culturally distant environments. The results show how important middle managers are to the company's strategy by connecting headquarters and subsidiaries, adapting strategies to local conditions, and using their cross-cultural skills. This study aids to the body of knowledge on international business by combining managerial skills with contextual distance variables and focusing on the MENA region, which hasn't been studied enough cultural intelligence is important for making multinational companies work better in difficult and faraway places, as shown by their real-world effects.
Drawing on stewardship theory, we propose a serial mediation model in which diversity climate enhances attitudes toward internationalization through the sequential effects of expatriate adjustment and cultural intelligence. Furthermore, we investigate the moderating role of risk propensity in strengthening the relationship between cultural intelligence and internationalization attitudes. Using time-lagged data from 221 expatriate managers in the UAE, we assessed hypotheses through structural equation modeling. The results indicate that diversity climate positively influences internationalization attitudes, with expatriate adjustment and cultural intelligence serving as sequential mediators. Additionally, risk propensity positively moderates the relationship between cultural intelligence and internationalization. Our findings contribute to the expatriate management literature by uncovering the psychological and organizational mechanisms linking workplace diversity to the development of a global mindset. Practical implications suggest that fostering inclusive environments and enhancing cultural learning can promote internationalization readiness, particularly for risk-inclined expatriates.
This study examines whether differentiation of self (DS), derived from Bowen's family systems theory, is associated with leadership-relevant psychological functioning under relational pressure, and whether these associations vary across cultural contexts. Adopting a cross-cultural psychosocial perspective, the paper questions universalist assumptions in leadership research that treat emotionally autonomous self-regulation as uniformly adaptive across settings. A cross-sectional comparative survey design was used to analyze data collected in Italy and South Korea through the Differentiation of Self Inventory-Revised (DSI-R) and the Outcome Questionnaire-45.2 (OQ-45.2). The analytical strategy combined descriptive comparisons, correlational analyses, and a regression models to examine both the overall association between DS and psychological distress and the extent to which cultural context shapes these relationships. The findings indicate that DS is meaningfully associated with psychological distress in both groups, while some dimensions appear to vary across contexts in their relative salience. These results support a culturally embedded view of leadership-relevant functioning and suggest that the psychosocial processes linking self-regulation, relational boundaries, and distress may not operate uniformly across cultures. The study is limited by its cross-sectional design and by using self-report measures, particularly in relation to the Korean adaptation of the DSI-R. Overall, the paper contributes to leadership research by proposing DS as a culturally sensitive mechanism for understanding functioning under relational and emotional demands.
Generosity-that is, giving, kindness, openness-is an ethical human value influencing the formation of spiritual capital-a construct of rising interest in studies of business. Generosity is also evidenced in the intersection of business and society, for example, in corporate social responsibility literature. However, the generosity ethic is under-examined in organizational literature and thus merits attention. To remedy this, we review the limited research on and conceptualize a holistic understanding of generosity. Drawing on intercultural business contexts, we use a social constructivist epistemology to illustrate our conceptual model empirically. Our findings call attention to the critical role of in-group versus out-group differentiation and nuanced contrast between intended and collateral benefits for a distinctive unpacked conception of generosity relative to mainstream understanding of and conventional lens for viewing organizational culture. Our discussion develops a more nuanced consideration of generosity within business and society and indicate contributions, implications, and limitations.
The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of leader character strength on employee trust and organizational resilience, along with ethical climate as a mediator and power distance orientation as a moderator. This study is based on data from 402 respondents from 23 different organizations across various sectors of the UAE which were collected using a two-wave approach to minimize the impact of common-method bias. In the first wave, employees assessed leader character strength, ethical climate, power distance, and trust; in the second wave, leaders assessed organizational resilience. Individual-, mediated-, and moderated relationships were analyzed using structural equation modeling in Mplus. Results showed that leader character strengths positively predicted trust, as well as organizational resilience. Ethical climate was found to be a partial mediator in both cases, as well as a stronger case for trust than organizational resilience. In combination with high power distance orientation, the relationship of leader character strengths and ethical climate was found to be moderated more strongly at higher levels. It is recommended that organizations incorporate character development for leaders, in both ethical climates, as this fosters trust and resilience. In organizations with high power distance leaders need to find ways of reducing distance, and visibility of ethical behavior in the organization.
Managers are increasingly confronted with decisions, particularly in environments marked by uncertainty, ethical dilemmas, and competing priorities. These compressed, high-stakes "micro-moments" expose not only technical skills but also the deeper dispositions of managerial character. Yet, despite recognition of character as a vital dimension of leadership, research in management studies has tended to reduce it to traits or virtues, leaving underexplored how character is enacted and cultivated in practice. This study addresses that gap by examining how attention, critical reflection, and peer learning, embedded in a film-based pedagogy, foster the development of managerial character. Drawing on social learning theory, we position film as a pedagogical "safe laboratory" that immerses managers in vivid, emotionally engaging scenarios of hard decision-making, provoking dialogue and reflective inquiry without real-world consequences. Using a mixed-method design, including phenomenological interviews and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) of survey data from 110 managers, we identify multiple causal configurations that lead to heightened motivation to apply new decision-making skills in the workplace. Our findings advance a processual view of character, showing it to be dynamic and socially constructed rather than a fixed attribute. We demonstrate how cognitive and relational mechanisms, particularly reflective dialogue and peer interaction, translate film-based experiences into the enactment of dispositional qualities such as humanity, humility, and integrity. For management education, this highlights the value of pedagogies that combine attention, reflection, and social learning to cultivate character in ways conventional analytical tools neglect. By reframing character as something performed and refined in micro-moments of choice, this study contributes both theoretically and pedagogically. It offers educators and organizations actionable pathways to prepare leaders capable of navigating ambiguity with judgment, resilience, and integrity.
This study examines the impact of conversational AI characteristics-perceived accessibility, perceived privacy and security, perceived informational quality, and perceived functional quality-on frontline employees' creative performance, mediated by AI adoption and moderated by AI anthropomorphism. Drawing on a sample of 330 frontline employees working in Pakistani service industries, the research investigates how key features of conversational AI influence creative performance through the mediating role of AI adoption. Additionally, the study explores whether AI anthropomorphism strengthens the relationship between conversational AI characteristics and AI adoption. The results indicate that all hypothesized relationships are statistically significant. Specifically, all conversational AI characteristics positively affect frontline employees' AI adoption, which in turn enhances their creative performance. Furthermore, AI anthropomorphism amplifies the link between conversational AI features and AI adoption, suggesting that humanlike AI traits facilitate greater acceptance and usage among employees. These findings contribute to the growing literature on AI in organizational settings by highlighting the mechanisms through which conversational AI fosters creativity and the contingent role of anthropomorphism.
Organizations are increasingly expected to enable human flourishing, rather than focusing solely on efficiency and shareholder returns. We argue that character, a suite of interrelated virtues such as integrity, courage, humility, and judgment, is a scalable lever for building flourishing individuals and organizations. To advance this inquiry, our study investigates two central research questions: (1) What factors influence the effectiveness of character development? and (2) How is flourishing impacted by character practice and development? We present a multi-program study of a research-based mobile application that operationalizes character development as habit formation rather than knowledge transfer. The platform embeds seven evidence-informed strategies (language, practice, reflection, reminders, exemplars, friendships, and systems), provides individualized learning paths, and captures longitudinal data on engagement, character, and flourishing (performance, quality of interactions, mood). Across 14 programs, results show that character growth reliably predicts increases in flourishing. Weekly engagement, which encompasses the full character-development process model, is the strongest predictor of flourishing. Engagement predicts character change only when the mobile app is used as a primary developmental tool, highlighting the importance of structured integration. We contribute (1) empirical evidence connecting character development to a unified flourishing outcome, (2) a habit-based process model of character change implementable via technology, and (3) design implications for aligning individual practice with organizational systems so that character becomes infrastructure for sustainable flourishing.
Although prior studies have differentiated between global and local corporate social responsibility (CSR), the strategic configuration of CSR portfolios by multinational enterprises (MNEs) remains unclear. Drawing on strategic choice theory, this study examines how regulatory and international factors influence MNEs' engagement in global and local CSR. We posit that greater regulatory disparities encourage MNEs to prioritize global over local CSR and that internationalization follows a U-shaped relationship with both forms of CSR. By advancing the global integration-local responsiveness framework, this study offers a strategic choice perspective on the interplay between global and local CSR, extending the concept of CSR cross-vergence in international business.
This article explores the place of leader character in implicit leadership theories (ILTs) and the features of character and competence that are constitutive of good leadership as it is perceived by employees in business organizations. We focus on what it means to be a good leader, recognizing that good can be understood in relation to ethics or effectiveness or both. Our aim is to investigate the relative importance of character-related aspects (ethics) and competence-related aspects (effectiveness) of implicit leadership theories in business organizations. To investigate inductive perceptions of "good leadership," we conducted a two-study prototype analysis, surveying 1,158 UK business employees across 37 different companies. Our findings (i) present three types of good leadership attributes: professional competencies, interpersonal competencies, and character qualities; (ii) demonstrate the importance of character qualities in ILTs alongside interpersonal and professional competencies; and (iii) reveal how perceptions of these categories differ between leadership level, gender, and sector. We discuss implications for research into ILTs and leader character.
This study investigates, in line with the adage "It is in the eye of the beholder," how individual attributions vary regarding supervisors' character traits, including being forgiving and considerate. This study, therefore, hypothesized that individual attribution might be influenced by the direct reports' own psychological state, including their regulatory focus, which refers to promotion focus and prevention focus. These motivational systems explain how individuals either use approach or avoidance tactics to accomplish a goal. The study draws on organizational support theory, which emphasizes the norm of reciprocity. The study consisted of a quantitative, cross-sectional survey of employees in a Kenyan organization undergoing a planned change initiative, yielding 174 complete responses. Even after controlling for the perceived ability of the supervisor, the findings reveal that promotion-focused orientation is linked to increased attribution of supervisor support during a change initiative, whereas prevention-focused orientation is not. This study introduces an individual employee's regulatory focus as a boundary condition that governs their attributions of supervisors' character traits, such as being forgiving and considerate, and subsequently, the reciprocity norms. The study contributes to the literature on leaders' character by highlighting the role of followers' own psychological state when attributing whether their immediate supervisor is supportive during change. The study extends Organization Support Theory by contributing empirical evidence of the importance of supervisory support as a proxy for organizational support. The results have important implications for the recruitment of employees and the design of management and employee training programmes, focusing on employees' individual differences in response to change and considering ethnic differences in developing country contexts.
