Leadership, communication and innovation

Roland Bel, Vladimir Smirnov and Andrew Wait ()

No 2015-22, Working Papers from University of Sydney, School of Economics

Abstract: We study the interplay between communication, leadership attributes and the probability of successful innovation. Although a firm requires both strong leadership and sufficient communication to overcome inertia, we posit that frequent communication – particularly amongst strong managers and in larger firms – can cause leaders to pull the firm in different directions, resulting in disagreement and a failure to successfully innovate. Using a uniquely detailed establishment-level data set we find that, on their own, firm size, regular communication and result-oriented leadership are all positively associated with innovation. However, as predicted by our model, the use of frequent communication in successfully innovating firms is moderated: (i) when leaders tend to be strongly focussed on results; and (ii) in larger firms.

Keywords: Innovation; Communication; Leadership: Inertia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-ent and nep-ino
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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