The Impact Of CEO Servant Leadership On Organizational Performance: Investigating The Mediating And Moderating Processes

In this fiercely competitive and fast-changing business environment,the survival and development of organization strongly rely on CEO's excellent leadership.Existing literature on CEO strategic leadership emphasize on exploring CEO transformational leadership and CEO empowering leadership,which are considered as “leader–centric” leadership behaviors,and their influence on organizational performance and innovation.However,the results of these studies are very disappointing and confusing.While a few studies found the positive influence of CEO transformational leadership and CEO empowering leadership on organizational performance and innovation,most studies show a weak relationship between them,especially in large companies.Thereby,whether or not CEO transformational leadership and CEO empowering leadership can influence organizational performance and innovation is still an open question.Some scholars have called for future studies to explore new types of CEO strategic leadership and their influence on the organization.Servant leadership has received lots of research attention in recent leadership studies.Different from traditional approach to leadership which emphasizes on “leader–centric” leadership behaviors,servant leadership is a “subordinate-centric” leadership approach which means that leaders lead their subordinates not by controlling but through serving so as to inspire the subordinates to achieve the their goals and the goals of the organization.Recently,researchers have investigated the impact of servant leadership.However,these studies mainly focus on the impact of servant leadership on employee and team outcomes.There is little research that examines the impact of CEO servant leadership on organizational outcomes.To date,research on servant leadership is still in primary stage.There are important research gaps that deserve future research attention:(1)can CEO servant leadership improve organization performance in different organizations?(2)What is the mediating mechanism underlying the relationship between CEO servant leadership and organizational performance?(3)Under which circumstances can CEO servant leadership generate a more positive effect on organizations?Based on upper echelons theory,social exchange theory and knowledge-based view,this research develops a conceptual model that links CEO servant leadership with organizational performance.To test our hypotheses,this study conducts a large-scale questionnaire survey which consists of companies and senior executives from different areas and industries.For senior executives in each company,we select the chief finance officer and another vice president.After matching the responses from the senior managers and deleting missing data,our final sample consists of 388 companies.The statistical results indicate that:(1)There is a significantly positive effect of CEO servant leadership on organizational performance;(2)There is a significantly positive effect of CEO servant leadership on employee-oriented organizational culture;(3)There is a significantly positive effect of employee-oriented organizational culture on employee knowledge sharing;(4)Employee knowledge sharing has a positive influence on organizational performance;(5)The influence of CEO servant leadership on organization is in turn mediated by employee-oriented organizational culture and employee knowledge sharing;(6)CEO founder status strengths the positive effect of CEO servant leadership on employee-oriented organizational culture;(7)Market competition strengthens the positive effect of employee knowledge sharing on organizational performance.The research findings have important theoretical implications.First,this study confirms the positive influence of CEO servant leadership on organizational performance in China.By doing so,this study not only helps solves the dilemma between “leadership” and “service” which are usually considered to be incompatible,but also enriches the research on “strategic leadership”.Second,based on upper echelons perspective,social exchange theory,and knowledge-based view,this study investigates the mediating roles of employee-oriented culture and employee knowledge sharing,which helps open the “black box” underlying the relationship between CEO servant leadership and organizational performance.Finally,this study examines the moderating role of CEO founder status and market competition,which helps identify the boundary conditions of CEO servant leadership.The research findings also have important practical implications.First,this study echoes the traditional Chinese culture value of “caring about people” and meets society's expectation of “serving the people”.It also evokes the discussion of CEO servant leadership among researchers and managers,and helps them to understand the importance of promoting CEO servant leadership in organizations.Second,this research can guide companies on how to identify,select and train CEO servant leaders so as to improve organizational performance.Third,this research can guide CEOs to adjust their leadership behavior based on their own characters and external environment so as to enhance leadership effectiveness.Lastly,this research can help guide companies to foster employee-oriented culture which enhances employee knowledge sharing and finally organizational performance.