Contextual and Industry Considerations in Strategic Leadership-EO Research

I begin this chapter with a brief review of the task environment—environmental hostility, dynamism, and complexity—as a moderating factor in the EO-performance literature, and direct-effect relationships of the task environment to EO. But I quickly turn my attention to contextual factors that go beyond the task environment, and that represent fruitful avenues of inquiry in the strategic leadership—EO context. I focus first on capital velocity expectations, and how capital efficiency may influence leadership decisions and resource allocation decisions regarding EO. I then explore how the speed of digital transformation in an industry creates a series of moderating conditions on various strategic leadership predictors and EO outcomes. I next turn to a brief discussion of differences between public and private firms, specifically in the context of disclosure requirements and performance expectations among publicly traded firms. I conclude with how various boutique EO conceptualizations—international EO, non-profit EO, and so forth—relate to the research model presented in the book.