Leadership Styles and Top Management Team Performance in Foreign-Invested Entrepreneurial Ventures in China: Team-Level Mediators and Cross-Cultural Moderators
Abstract
This study examines how transformational, transactional, and entrepreneurial leadership styles relate to top management team (TMT) performance in foreign-invested entrepreneurial ventures operating in China. Drawing on upper echelons theory and cross-cultural management perspectives, the study uses a mixed-methods design combining qualitative interviews with multistage quantitative surveys involving 73 TMTs across multiple sectors.
The findings indicate that intrateam trust, strategic consensus, and innovation orientation mediate the relationship between leadership styles and team performance. Cultural distance, institutional complexity, and market dynamism significantly moderate the relationships between leadership behaviors and organizational outcomes. By identifying both the team processes and the external conditions that shape these relationships, the study clarifies how executive leadership relates to performance in cross-border ventures in an emerging market. The findings have implications for venture founders and human resource managers designing leadership structures and managing culturally diverse executive teams.
Keywords: Top management teams, leadership styles, team performance, strategic consensus, cultural distance, international entrepreneurship, China.
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References
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