Top Down and Bottom Up: Connecting Strategic Leadership and Employees

Recently, management researchers have called for more research on the relationship between strategic leadership and stakeholders, such as employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and shareholders. In this symposium, we aim to contribute to this growing body of research by focusing on the interaction between strategic leaders and employees. We have gathered four working papers from authors who are active in the fields of strategic leadership, governance, and stakeholder research and invited two renowned discussants, Donald Hambrick and Yan Anthea Zhang, who have made significant contributions to these fields. With four paper presentations and a panel discussion, we aim to advance the conversation on (1) how strategic leaders influence employees, such as employee well-being and commitment, and (2) how employee attitudes influence strategic leaders, such as CEO discretion. Overall, we believe the theme is important and timely given the recent focus of business leaders and management scholars on stakeholder governance and the significance of employees in firms’ value creation. Bottom-Up Effects of Female Strategic Leadership: Firm Performance Effects through Employees Author: Seung-Hwan Jeong; U. of Georgia Author: Saehee Kang; Florida State U. Author: Kris Byron; Georgia State U. A mentally healthy organization: An intangible socio-psychological asset for firms Author: Abbie Griffith Oliver; U. of Virginia Author: Jeffrey Lovelace; UVA - McIntire Love Amid Terror: Terrorist Attacks and Firm’s Employee Treatment Author: Xina Li; INSEAD Author: Guoli Chen; INSEAD Employee Approval as a Source of CEO Discretion Author: Muhan Zhang; Penn State Smeal College of Business