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When leaders are marketers: a duality perspective on the effect of openness to experience on marketing behaviors and the moderating role of bottom-line mentality

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Abstract

While research has considered the effects of CEO and top-management team members’ characteristics on strategic initiatives (e.g. marketing), less research has examined when non-executive leaders directly contribute to these initiatives. In this research, drawing from the duality framework on leader characteristics, we examine how leader openness to experience is associated with their increased engagement in marketing behaviors (e.g. recruiting new customers). Across two field studies, including an exploratory sample of small business owners and a sample of non-executive leaders in the outpatient physical therapy industry, we find that openness to experience was related to leaders’ likelihood of executing marketing functions. Additionally, this relationship was weakened when leaders had a primary focus on short-term financial outcomes (i.e., high bottom-line mentality). We further link marketing to unit-level performance in a subsample of Study 2, suggesting that non-executive leaders’ marketing behaviors can impact objective organizational performance.

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Notes

  1. Due to the nested structure of our data, with clinic directors nested within organizations, we considered whether multilevel modeling was appropriate. Clustering across clinics explained an insignificant percentage of the variance in the marketing behaviors of clinic directors (τ00 = .016, p = .385). The ICC(1) = .077 and ICC(2) = .349 were both below the medians reported by James (1982; .12 and .60, respectively). ICC statistics were calculated using the formulae provided by Bliese (2000) and Chen and Bliese (2002). A one-way analysis of variance was conducted in which the organizations were the independent variable and the focal variable (i.e., marketing behaviors) was the dependent variable. The differences between the average marketing behaviors of clinic directors within organizations, compared across organizations, was insignificant (F(14) = 1.534, p = .118).

  2. When entering the interaction term (openness x bottom-line mentality) as an additional control variable, the pattern and significance of the results remained the same.

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  1. Sawyer Business School, Suffolk University, 73 Tremont St, Boston, MA, 02108, USA

    Katrina A. Graham & Robert S. Smith

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Ethical Statement

Both studies were approved by two separate universities’ Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). Both IRBs and the institutions are in the U.S. The approved IRB protocol number for Study 1 was 1619292–1 at Suffolk University (Boston, MA). The approved IRB protocol number for Study 2 was 1412003294 at Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA).

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Katrina A. Graham and Robert S. Smith contributed equally to this manuscript and shared first authorship.

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Graham, K.A., Smith, R.S. When leaders are marketers: a duality perspective on the effect of openness to experience on marketing behaviors and the moderating role of bottom-line mentality. Curr Psychol 42, 9537–9551 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02216-2

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