Relationship-focused Strategic Leadership, Human Resource Flexibility and Organizational Performance: An Empirical Study Based on Private Enterprises in the Transition Economy

Li Zhaomin, Zhao Shuming

Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 38, Issue 04, pp. 73 - 89 (2016)  DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.2016.04.006

Abstract

The research of the relationship between relationship-focused strategic leadership and organizational performance in private enterprises in China's transition economy is in the startup stage. Based on dynamic capability theory, this paper attempts to probe the influence of relationship-focused strategic leadership on organizational performance, especially the mediating role of human resource flexibility in this relationship and the moderating role of environmental uncertainty. This paper hassent questionnairesto 950 executvies in 460 private enterprises mainly located in 14 cities, and finally has received 303 valid matching samples. Then it conducts the empirical analysis using SPSS and LISREL statistical software. The results show that relationship-focused strategic leadership is positively related to organizational performance, and human resource flexibility plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between relationship-focused strategic leadership and organizational performance; environmental uncertainty plays a positive moderatingrole in the relationship between relationship-focused strategic leadership and human resource flexibility and does not play a moderating role in the relationship between human resource flexibility and organizational performance. It shows that the consideration of human resource flexibility and environmental uncertainty as two important factors can help to better explain the influence of relationship-focused strategic leadership on organizational performance in private enterprises, and provide critical reference for the implementation of relationship-focused strategic leadershipand the improvement of human resource flexibility in private enterprises in the transition economy.

Keywords

relationship-focused strategic leadership; human resource flexibility; environmental uncertainty; organizational performance