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How does CEO personality affect new product development performance? The partial mediating role of strategic schema change

Xiaozhou Ding

Chinese Management Studies

ISSN: 1750-614X

Article publication date: 13 December 2024

51

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the direct impact of various personality traits of the CEO on new product development (NPD) performance, as well as the mediating role of strategic schema changes in the relation among these key variables.

Design/methodology/approach

The research focuses on Chinese science and technology enterprises. A total of 659 valid responses from CEOs and senior managers have been analyzed to test the hypotheses.

Findings

The results reveal that CEO’s conscientiousness and agreeableness negatively correlate with NPD performance and strategic schema changes. CEO traits such as extroversion, openness to experience and emotional stability are positively associated with both variables. Furthermore, the study confirms that strategic schema changes partially mediate the relation between CEO personality traits and NPD performance.

Research limitations/implications

This study focuses only on the relation between CEOs’ Big Five personality traits and NPD performance. However, other personality traits such as narcissism or dark personality traits may also influence NPD performance. Future research should explore the effect of a broader range of CEO personality traits on corporate performance. And, this paper primarily investigates the mediating role of strategic schema change between CEO personality and NPD performance, drawing on personality psychology and strategic cognition. However, other important theoretical perspectives, such as organizational resources and binary learning, may offer additional insights into the relation between CEO personality and NPD performance. Future research could delve deeper into these perspectives at multiple levels for a more comprehensive understanding.

Originality/value

The findings broaden the application of personality psychology within innovation management, offering valuable practical insights and new perspectives for technology enterprises seeking to enhance new product performance.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful to editors and anonymous reviews for reviewing this paper.

Funding: This work was supported by the Ministry of Education Humanities and Social Science Fund Youth Project(24YJC630035); Youth Project of Hebei Natural Science Foundation (G2023203013); Youth Fund Project for Humanities and Social Sciences Research in Higher Education Institutions in Hebei Province (SQ2024215).

Conflict of interest: The authors declare that we have no conflicts of interest in this work.

Citation

Ding, X. (2024), "How does CEO personality affect new product development performance? The partial mediating role of strategic schema change", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-05-2024-0313

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited

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