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CEO values, stakeholder culture, and stakeholder-based performance

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Abstract

This study examines how CEO values affect organizational performance. We examine organizational performance in terms of stakeholder-based performance (SBP) comprising four components of quality of goods and services, organizational justice, stakeholder affiliation and opportunity cost; and focus on one key CEO value orientation, specifically whether CEOs are “self-interested” or “other-regarding” in interactions with organizational stakeholders. We also hypothesize that the effect of CEO values on SBP is not direct, but indirect through the mediating factor of stakeholder culture. Data from 621 CEOs of not-for-profit (NFP) organizations in Australia are collected through a mail-based survey questionnaire, and analysed using structural equation modeling. The results support our hypotheses and have implications for organizational managers in creating and distributing stakeholder value in NFP organizations and potentially beyond the NFP context, as well as for future research concerned with how ethical characteristics of top managers affect organizational success.

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Notes

  1. While organizational size and age are the most common controls across all studies cited, some studies control for specific additional variables unique to the context of their study. For example, Lin et al. (2016) controlled for additional variables related to the characteristics of the CEO because their study was focused on CEOs and CEOs’ transformational leadership and, hence these further controls were relevant in their specific case, but not more generally.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to gratefully acknowledge the insightful feedback and kind assistance that was received from Professor Seung-Hyun Lee and the two anonymous reviewers for this paper.

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Correspondence to Lu Jiao.

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Jiao, L., Harrison, G., Dyball, M.C. et al. CEO values, stakeholder culture, and stakeholder-based performance. Asia Pac J Manag 34, 875–899 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-017-9506-3

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