Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

The Delicate Balance of Organizational Leadsership: Encouraging Learning and Driving Successful Innovation

Abstract Details

2010, Doctor of Management, Case Western Reserve University, Weatherhead School of Management.
We explore the effect of leadership styles on organizational innovation, focusing on the lived experience of leaders and investigating the impact of organizational leadership, learning and innovation on financial performance. In the first part, we interview seventeen leaders to explore their experience of using strategic conversations to yield innovative outcomes. Although these organizational leaders uniformly espoused emergent conversation, whereby they prefer to collaborate with their teams in an experiential learning process, their conversations were primarily leader-driven directed discussions with specific outcomes in mind. Moreover, they emphasized the critical role of multiple strategic conversations distributed over time, with varied participants and purposes. In the second part, we use a global sample of public companies to examine the relationships among transformational and transactional leadership, exploration and exploitation and performance. We found that balancing transformational and transactional leadership drives innovative learning more effectively than engaging in any single style separately. Additionally, “where” ideas are sourced and “how” they are shared fully mediates the relationship between leadership and performance, suggesting a strong correlation between idea sharing effectiveness and earnings growth. Leaders must balance innovative idea sourcing (exploration and exploitation) with entrepreneurial idea sharing to unleash their organization’s collective learning to drive successful performance.
Nick Berente, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Richard Boland, Ph.D. (Advisor)
David A. Kolb, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Kale Lyytinen, Ph.D. (Advisor)

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Smith, A. K. (2010). The Delicate Balance of Organizational Leadsership: Encouraging Learning and Driving Successful Innovation [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=casedm1568731826883226

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Smith, Ann. The Delicate Balance of Organizational Leadsership: Encouraging Learning and Driving Successful Innovation. 2010. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=casedm1568731826883226.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Smith, Ann. "The Delicate Balance of Organizational Leadsership: Encouraging Learning and Driving Successful Innovation." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=casedm1568731826883226

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)