How executives and boards set their organization's strategic direction and navigate corporate challenges is intertwined with the national governance frameworks, economic structures, political and legal systems, labor markets, and societal cultural expectations in which they operate. However, much of the existing strategic leadership research on the subject disproportionately draws from U.S.-based studies, often focusing on samples of large, publicly traded corporations. While the economic prowess of these firms is not disputed, the Anglo-Saxon, shareholder-owned corporate form they represent is not the predominant organizational model globally. In fact, it is somewhat of an exception. Governance and leadership in organizations are influenced by unique institutional contexts, making it unlikely that best practices from one setting can be seamlessly transferred to another. Each national or regional setting contains distinctive, macro-level elements that shape who is most likely to lead and govern an organization, as well as the actions they take. To date, our understanding of how these institutional influences impact such micro-level leadership dynamics remains underdeveloped. We, therefore, propose a special issue that decenters the conversation about this research topic, to shift the current universalist assumptions of strategic leadership and governance practices toward a more pluralistic view that recognizes the interplay between macro-level institutional factors and micro-level dynamics.
Topic relevance
Recent developments in global business and political dynamics underscore the relevance of the special issue topic. Economic power centers were already shifting as Global South markets expand, but we now see geopolitical alliances evolving, sometimes straining even long-standing relationships (e.g., within NATO). Moreover, we observe an increasing variation across world regions in firm commitments to major global initiatives, such as the United Nations' development goals aimed at combating social inequality and climate change. As these transformations have a significant societal impact, they underscore the need for a special issue that represents a collection of papers that enhances our multi-level, contextual understanding of strategic leadership and governance.
AIMS AND SCOPE OF THE ISSUE
For conciseness, we refer to strategic leadership and governance practices broadly in this call for papers, but we adhere to their definition as "the functions performed by individuals at the top levels of an organization (CEOs, TMT members, Directors, General Managers) that are intended to have strategic consequences for the firm" (Samimi et al., 2022, p. 3). Management scholars commonly emphasize that micro-level processes like leadership styles (Georgakakis et al., 2022; Park et al., 2011; Steinberg et al., 2022), relational dynamics within (and between) TMTs and boards (Asad et al., 2023; Heyden et al., 2017; Rink et al., 2022, Veltrop et al., 2021), and strategic decision-making processes (Witt, Fainshmidt, & Aguilera, 2022) underpin the practices.
The goal of this special issue is twofold, First, it aims to move beyond a single-level focus by inviting research that explores how strategic leadership and governance practices, as well as their effects on meso-level firm processes and firm outcomes (both financial and non-financial), are influenced by macro-level features of an organization's institutional context. Second, the special issue aims to demonstrate how recent trends in these contexts, such as political developments, industry innovations, or new regulations (including, but not limited to, those addressing sustainability concerns or reflecting geopolitical change), are uniquely reshaping the institutional contexts in which strategic leaders must operate, and hereby their practices.
Specifically, the special issue encourages submissions that contextualize strategic leadership and governance through three distinct lenses:
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Within-country studies that explore how macro-level institutional features and micro-level factors within organizations interact to shape leadership and governance practices (i.e., studies on subnational institutional variety);
2. Cross-country comparative research that examines how cultural, institutional, or economic differences influence these practices across national or regional settings;
3. Studies of interconnected responses to larger regional developments, such as specific geopolitical shifts, crises, or changes in business ecosystems, and how these impact leadership and governance practices within countries situated in those regions.
Why these three focus points?
The three insights we aim to achieve through contextualization will help expand our scholarship beyond its traditional foundations. The first, within-country inquiry enables a deeper and more context-sensitive understanding of how leadership and governance are embedded in local institutional configurations. The second comparative lens helps define the boundaries of such country-centric models, offering opportunities to refine or challenge prevalent theorizing on the topic, which is still primarily built on single-country sources. The third approach, focused on transnational trends, further helps to distinguish leadership practices rooted in local institutional norms from those shaped by broader macro-level forces. Together, these perspectives open up new theoretical ground and broaden the scope of strategic leadership research.
In conclusion, studies on these topics can establish counterfactuals and challenge taken-for-granted assumptions. Take, for instance, theoretical assumptions about effective executive decision-making developed within the legal and institutional frameworks of Anglo-Saxon economies (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). In other cultures, strategic decision-making is likely driven by other micro-social and cultural dynamics (e.g., Qian et al., 2013). Without a broader geographic lens, we thus risk applying models that do not fully capture how leadership and governance practices function in alternative contextual realities, particularly in regions with economies that yield substantial global influence.
Research examining how enduring versus changing institutional logics influence strategic leadership and governance practices, and vice versa, can also shift current scholarly thinking in the field. For instance, governance structures in parts of Europe and Asia innately differ from the Anglo-Saxon structure because they can formally integrate employee representatives into board decision-making, have different director remuneration incentives (e.g., Hillman & Dalziel, 2003) and prescribe different collaboration systems (i.e., one-tier versus two-tier systems; Heyden et al., 2015). This fundamental institutional difference may trigger variations in leaders' normative views on stakeholder participation and board independence at the micro-level. At the same time, broader regional institutional developments can uniquely reshape the landscape in which leadership and governance are situated. Prior macro-level comparative research has examined organizations' market responses to such developments; however, it remains unclear how specific, culturally determined leadership and governance practices at the micro-level (e.g., leadership styles, executive board dynamics, and strategic decision-making) influence an organization's response to broader institutional changes. While recognizing that organizations may show a certain degree of response convergence to a (commonly experienced) change, culturally distinct leadership views may explain possible regional divergences in firm strategies to a significant market transformation (Cloutier et al., 2025; Park et al., 2020; Schneider & Meyer, 1991).
Importantly, our goal is not to study global-level developments as such or to call for replicational work, but rather to encourage ecologically valid research that appreciates the diverse and changing institutional contexts in which strategic leaders operate, yielding theoretical advancements or new paradigms. In light of this purpose, we welcome papers that draw on management research, as well as papers from adjacent social science domains (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology), and papers that take an interdisciplinary approach. Moreover, we encourage submissions across the entire methodological, theoretical, and paradigmatic traditions of JMS.