Top Management Influence on Innovations: Effects of Executive Characteristics and Social Culture

Abstract

Innovation is a growing source of strategic advantage across a variety of industrialized cultures. Top managers often seek to influence or champion strategic innovations. This study examined the extent to which executive characteristics explains top management influence on product/market (PM) and administrative (A DM) innovations in four Western cultures. The results support the proposition that different executive characteristics explain influence on each type of innovation. The influence process differed across cultures for A DM but not for PM innovations. The implications of this study for practice and research are discussed.