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Based on attributional complexity (AC) theory, the authors empirically examine the impact of biculturalism on cross-cultural adjustment and the degree to which people make isomorphic attributions, critical for cross-cultural leadership effectiveness.

Using questionnaire surveys, the authors first validate measures in a validation sample and then empirically test the model in a second sample, using structural equation modeling.

The authors’ findings reveal an empirical connection between biculturalism and AC on the one hand, while also showing support for the relationship between biculturalism and attributional knowledge. Findings also demonstrate that biculturalism is related to attributional accuracy in cross-cultural contexts via an attributional mechanism, as suggested by AC theory.

First, AC theory emerges as one with excellent prospects for explaining intercultural work in multicultural settings. Biculturalism's links to AC and attributional knowledge are critical for extensions to cross-cultural leadership effectiveness, and international knowledge transfer, interesting and high potential research avenues for the discipline.

The authors’ findings carry a host of managerial implications. AC training can provide all international assignees with the necessary foundational skills and learning abilities to successfully interact in the host country setting with local nationals. This study also suggests that managers on international assignments should focus their efforts on acquiring attributional knowledge because it can provide a solid boost to their understanding of the local culture.

One’s understanding of biculturals and their cross-cultural management competencies is very limited. The authors provide empirical support for the hypotheses, hitherto unexamined in extant literature.

Although the international business literature has examined leader traits that are desirable in different cultures, it has not examined critical behaviors or managerial attributions of credit and blame. Credit and blame attributions have important consequences for the desirability of leadership across cultures. Arguing that these types of managerial attributions are likely to have a strong impact on what constitutes desirable leadership; the authors examine them in five countries, namely, USA, France, India, Turkey and Vietnam. The purpose of this paper is to contribute by examining the influence of credit and blame attributions on subordinate satisfaction and leadership perceptions (desirability), unaddressed in the literature.

The model was tested using questionnaire responses of subordinates in a variety of business organizations, from the five countries indicated, including manufacturing, telecommunication, financial and other services.

Using the implicit leadership theory, the authors contribute by demonstrating the importance of these attributions for leadership perceptions in five different cultures. The results are supportive of the hypotheses and suggest the important moderating role of subordinate performance for leadership perceptions. The authors discuss findings in the context of the literature, highlight contributions and identify limitations and future directions.

Using the implicit leadership theory, the authors contribute by demonstrating the importance of these attributions for leadership perceptions in five different cultures.

This study aims to theorize a knowledge-based perspective on organizational commitment and turnover intentions among knowledge workers. The authors contribute by examining the impact of knowledge sharing, and managerial human capital respectively, on commitment and turnover in a sample of 274 knowledge workers (engineers) from India. Additionally, the authors examine the crucial moderating role of intra-firm causal ambiguity on these relationships.

Using structural equation modeling and analysis of survey responses, the authors test a moderated mediation model to provide evidence of the positive impact of knowledge sharing and human capital, respectively, on turnover intention, mediated by organizational commitment. More importantly, the authors theorize and present evidence on the moderating role of intra-firm causal ambiguity, on these relationships.

The authors find that knowledge sharing behaviors are both intrinsically and extrinsically motivating for knowledge workers, which results in their emotional attachments and higher levels of identification and commitment, which subsequently results in lower turnover intention. Our findings also highlight the role of intra-firm causal ambiguity in making things difficult for organizations to retain talented employees in tough environments.

The authors provide a knowledge-based perspective of commitment and turnover in knowledge-intensive work contexts. The authors also contribute by provide an interesting account of the role of intra-firm causal ambiguity in knowledge processes leading to commitment.

This study aims to theoretically explore the relationship between potential antecedents of business model innovation (BMI) in multinational enterprises (MNEs) and the paths through which BMI unfolds in such contexts. This study theorizes how multiculturalism in top management teams (TMTs) influences team-level cultural intelligence (CQ), which enhances firm strategic agility and helps develop BMI in MNEs.

This study’s cross-level theoretical framework describes the mediating role of CQ of TMTs in the relationship between team multiculturalism and strategic agility, which subsequently influences BMI. This study discusses contributions, limitations and future directions.

MNEs’ capability of developing and recombining disruptive knowledge from globally dispersed sources and integrating them to innovate is subject to the knowledge-sourcing paradox. Despite the importance of intra-member diversity in the form of multicultural individuals in multicultural teams, inter-member diversity is more prominent in the literature. Regardless, the applicability of a comprehensive conceptualization of diversity in multicultural teams to BMI has yet to be examined. This study’s theoretical model links multiculturalism in TMTs with BMI in MNEs through a cross-level framework.

This study contributes to the International Business literature by proposing a novel conceptualization of team multiculturalism and leverage theoretical underpinnings of the Dynamic Managerial Capabilities perspective to develop a cross-level model of factors influencing BMI in MNEs.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an initial exploration of how expatriate roles change over time, across different stages of MNC international expansion, and subsequently theorize on the dynamic nature of change in expatriate roles.

The authors used the qualitative approach of building theory from interviews, creating theoretical propositions from empirical evidence. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with 22 top executives of large MNCs to derive rich descriptions on expatriate roles to build the cases which were subsequently comparatively analyzed.

The authors find that expatriate roles become increasingly differentiated over time, with different expatriates performing specialized roles. The findings suggest that the proportion of expatriates used as commanders in directly/explicitly controlling subsidiaries decreases over time. Role differentiation is strongly linked to the pressures for local responsiveness and pressures for standardization, respectively.

The exploratory evidence and resulting theorization needs to be verified in other samples and refined further using more longitudinal designs.

Knowledge of how and when expatriate roles change provides crucial inputs to HR managers for designing expatriate jobs, selecting appropriate candidates, and preparing them through appropriate training.

The findings identify the unique contribution that expatriates in later stages move away from commander roles in to roles demanding socialization, networking, knowledge sharing, coaching, and training, especially in firms that are high on the dimension of local responsiveness. Bears become bumble-bees and spiders in later stages of internalization especially for firms pursuing multi-domestic and transnational strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of business strategies with executive staffing of multinational companies (MNCs).

Based on in-depth interviews conducted with top executives of 22 MNCs’, the authors identify important connections between international business strategies and staffing orientation. The authors used the qualitative research approach of building theory from interviews; thus, creating theoretical propositions from empirical evidence.

The authors find that when the pressure for global integration is high, MNCs use more parent-country national (PCNs) (ethnocentric staffing) as against the use of host-country managers (HCNs) (polycentric staffing) when this pressure is low. Additionally, MNCs using a global strategy are more likely to use an ethnocentric staffing approach, those using a multi-domestic strategy use a polycentric approach and firms using transnational strategy adopt a mix of ethnocentric and polycentric approaches.

Although the authors derive theoretical patterns based on rich qualitative data, their sample is relatively small and comprises mostly of French MNCs. Generalizability to a broader context is limited. However, the authors’ findings have critical implications for future research.

The authors’ findings provide critical managerial implications for MNCs in matching their HR strategies with business strategies. These are important for effective strategy implementation.

Although MNC staffing orientations have been studied for a long time, their relationship to international business strategies is still not clearly understood. The authors contribute to the literature by investigating the relationship between MNCs’ business strategy types with staffing orientations.

Leadership theory and research has not addressed the role of leaders in knowledge management, despite its importance to organizations. Consequently, information and knowledge management as key leader functions have not been explored. This study is an attempt to generate a preliminary theory of the role of leaders in knowledge management through a grounded theory approach.

This study builds a grounded theory of the role of leadership in knowledge management by comparatively analyzing 37 in‐depth interviews of CEOs. Combining deductive and inductive methods, this study establishes the key role of top executive leaders of organizations in knowledge management.

The data from the interviews suggest that leaders are acutely aware of the role of information and knowledge sharing and design knowledge networks that serve to maximize organizational effectiveness. Moreover, leaders use information technology and knowledge management to better focus on key internal and external customers. Thus, this grounded theory emphasizes both the leader behavior dimensions of information and knowledge sharing. More importantly, this study links the processes of knowledge management and customer‐focused knowledge management to leader and organizational effectiveness. Additionally, there seems to be evidence that such knowledge management activities implemented by leaders can positively impact organizational performance.

This grounded theory study has identified relationships/ processes of leadership that are inherently longitudinal. A key limitation, however, is that the end result is theory, which needs to be tested and refined through other conventional mechanisms.

This study makes significant contributions to both the leadership and knowledge management literatures.

Research on leaders’ knowledge management systems focuses exclusively on how leaders gather and disseminate knowledge in collaboration with external actors. Not much is known about how leaders address the psychological aspects of employees and strategize internal communication. In addition, while previous work has treated high uncertainty as a default feature of crisis, this study aims to propose that perceived uncertainty varies in experience/meaning and has a crucial bearing on the relative balance of cognitive/emotional load on the leader and behavioral/psychological responses.

The authors contribute by qualitatively examining the role of leader knowledge systems in designing communication strategies in the context of the COVID-19 crisis by investigating communication characteristics, style, modes and the relatively unaddressed role of compassion/persuasion. In this pursuit, the authors interviewed 21 C-suite leaders, including chief executive officers, chief marketing officers, chief financial officers, chief human resource officers and founders, and analyzed their data using open, axial and selective coding, which were later extracted for representative themes and overarching dimensions.

Drawing from grounded theory research, the authors present a framework of knowledge systems and their resultant communication with employees in high uncertain and low uncertain crises. The authors highlight interactions of a set of concepts – leaders’ preparedness, leaders’ support to employees tailored communication adapted to perceived uncertainty, leading to enhanced trust – in the achievement of outcomes related to balancing operational and relational systems with employees. The findings suggest that a structured process of communication helps employees mitigate any concern related to uncertainty and feel confident in their leadership.

The research has implications for leaders in managing their knowledge systems, for human esources practitioners in designing effective internal communication programs, as well as for scholars in knowledge management, communication and leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a positive and functional attributional model of leadership, using both leadership perceptions and leadership effectiveness as criteria. Drawing from cognitive complexity theory, and attributional complexity theory, this article identifies attributional accuracy of managers as the fundamental component of the functional model developed here. The model of leadership developed here focuses on such key leadership constructs as leader information processing using complex schemata, leader attributions and their accuracy, leader behaviors that follow their attributions, mediating variables such as subordinate self‐efficacy, satisfaction, and motivation, and outcome variables such as leadership perceptions and subordinate performance. These variables are linked in a process model.

The article depends on a critical review of the literature to build a theoretical model consistent with theory building guidelines.

Accurate attributions and the avoidance of attributional biases are identified as key factors determining effectiveness and leadership perceptions. Leader interactive behaviors, feedback latency, and the development of strategies for improving performance are identified as key consequences of attributional accuracy.

This article has implications for the ways in which managers are selected and trained to provide leadership in organizations.

The theory developed here breaks new ground in the investigation of the positive and functional attributional processes of leaders leading to organizational or unit effectiveness. This research contributes to knowledge by pointing to the functional role of accurate attributions and the delineation of the processes through which such attributions can lead to enhancing subordinate motivation and hence leadership effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate structured content analysis (SCA) in leadership research by examining and contrasting it with traditional content analysis (TCA) and case survey methodology. SCA is presented as a variation of TCA, and is characterized as one that is more likely to be used by leadership researchers because of its more quantitative bent than TCA, but yet does not lose its capability to investigate inherently qualitative processes of leadership.

The paper systematically compares features of SCA as proposed by the seminal authors to the more sophisticated SCA proposed here. This is accomplished by clarifying and strengthening some of the inadequacies of SCA as initially conceptualized. The new SCA is first described in terms of its components and typical procedures. Using relevant leadership literature, the paper: clarifies the selection of data sources used in such analyses to enhance and verify source validity; identifies additional means to establish and verify reliability, in addition to that of inter‐coder (reproducibility) and stability (test‐retest) reliability; provides a systematic comparison of traditional TCA to the newer SCA; and illustrates the use of this method with a sample study.

While possessing all important advantages of traditional content analysis, this form of content analysis (new SCA) holds others, such as increased opportunity for estimating scale reliability and validity. Thus, the more quantitative nature of SCA is likely to be more suited to the higher standards for rigor of traditional leadership researchers using purely quantitative approaches.

Text source selection may still suffer from human fallibilities and judgment errors. SCA may also be restricted to the study of leadership through leadership communication in speeches, debates, letters, etc. However, these may constitute a significant portion of what leaders do, especially those at the top of their organizations.

The paper enriches the original SCA and refocuses it for the specific purpose of leadership research. Specifically, it identifies seven ways in which the original conceptualization can be strengthened to make it more amenable for today's leadership researchers.