5 REINVENTING STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
5.1 INTRODUCTION
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paper by Hambrick and Mason (1984) drawn from the strategic management literature. They argued
that people (those belonging to the dominant coalition, alternatively termed the Upper Echelon)
should have a more prominent place in theories of organizations. Given the chasm between the
strategy content and strategy process literatures (Pettigrew, 1992), insights from the process literature
had not seeped into the analytically oriented strategy content literature. As a result, strategic
management theory had traditionally been dominated by macro-level theories focusing on
understanding the behavior of organizations in relationship to their environments, while the individual
was notoriously absent (Ansoff, 1965; Chandler, 1962). The tradition of industrial organization
economics was similar: industry structure (e.g. concentration ratio of firms) combined with aggregate
firm conduct (i.e. combination of factors of production) to yield some level of industry profitability;
without regard for the role of individual behaviors (Bain, 1968; Mason, 1939). The perspective on
strategy however changed with the introGXFWLRQRIWKHQRWLRQRI³VWUDWHJLFOHDGHUVKLS ́(Hambrick &
Mason, 1984). As Hambrick (1988) observed ³DIWHU IRFXVLQJ IRU WZHQW\ \HDUV RQ HQYLURQPHQWV
processes, structures, portfolios and competitive dynamics, strategic management researchers have
shown a recent interest in returning to the study of individuals who are formally charged with
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,W LV QRW WKDW D ³QHZ ́ SKHQRPHQRQ RI VWUDWHJLF OHDGHUVKLS HPHUJHG LQ WKHmid-1980s. Rather, the
unique domain of strategic leadership (different from the traditional supervisory leadership literature)
started to become clarified during this time period. Up until the 1980s, the vast majority of leadership
research had been focused on lower- and middle-level managers and their relationships with their
immediate subordinates (House & Aditya, 1997). At that time, the distinct nature of challenges of
managers at the top-level of organizations and the determination of how these challenges should be
met, represented fertile ground for academic theory and research. The Asian economic powers such as
Japan and the Little Dragons as well as European players like Germany, undermined the market
dominance of North-American organizations. This not only had a dramatic impact on American
industry, but it in turn influenced research on many fronts within business schools in the USA (i.e.
still the primary source of organizational and leadership literature). A more competitive world forced
many organizations to radically reinvent themselves after enjoying several decades of what in