Exploring The Mechanisms For The Effects Of Chairman Authority On Strategic Flexibility

As the core of the board of directors,the chairman has a great influence on the operation of the board of directors and the development of the enterprise.The degree of concentration of the authority of the chairman and the gap between the levels of the board of directors have an important impact on the efficiency and quality of strategic decision-making.Therefore,in an increasingly complex economic environment,this article attempts to explore the influence of chairman authority on corporate strategy flexibility,while examining the path effect of the board level as an intermediary variable.With the growing maturity of the Upper Echelons Theory in the field of corporate governance,this article uses the Upper Echelons Theory as the basis to explain the strategic flexibility of the company from the perspective of the authority of the chairman and the board of directors.According to the research of Finkelstein(1992),this paper divides the chairman authority into position authority,reputation authority,ownership authority and expert authority.According to He(2011),two comprehensive indicators,the Gini coefficient and the coefficient of variation,are used to represent the informal level of the board and the formal level of the board.The basic ideas of this paper are: through combing and reviewing the literature,conducting theoretical analysis and model construction,and finally conducting empirical tests and conclusions.In the second chapter,the paper briefly reviews the concept definition,dimension and measurement of related variables.In the third chapter,it analyzes the influence mechanism of chairman authority on the company’s strategic flexibility,and then puts forward seven hypotheses.Finally,the empirical research methods are used to verify the theories and assumptions discussed earlier.The main conclusion of this paper is that the authority of the chairman has an important influence on strategic flexibility and presents an inverted U-shaped structure.The board level presents a partial mediation effect in the process of the influence of the chairman’s authority on the company’s strategic flexibility.The informal board hierarchy mediation effect is not significant,and the formal board hierarchy mediation effect is significant.