Journal of Small Business Management 2002 40(3), pp.
260–270
䊏 GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
The Impact of the Alignment of Strategy and
Managerial Characteristics on Spanish SMEs
by Montserrat Entrialgo
Over the last few years the need for
firms to adopt entrepreneurial behavior
has become evident. Entrepreneurial be-
havior has been defined in many ways, and
one of the most accepted ways is that of
Miller (1983), which considers that the
individual exhibits entrepreneurial behav-
ior when he or she performs product-mar-
ket innovations, takes risks, and behaves
proactively. Although the need to innovate
has always existed, it has been accentuated
in recent years due to the acceleration of
technological change and growing inter-
national competition (Veciana 1996). The
aim of this research is to analyze the rela-
tionship between the characteristics of a
firm’s managers (tenure, age, formal edu-
cation, and functional experience) and the
development of entrepreneurial behavior
in their firm using a sample of Spanish
small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs).
The strategic choice perspective (Child
1972) has generated a large body of re-
search examining the influence of execu-
tive managers on organizational outcomes
(Gupta and Govindarajan 1984; Miller,
Kets de Vries, and Toulouse 1982; Sturdi-
vant, Ginter, and Sawer 1985). Empirical
research demonstrates strong associations
between the characteristics of these man-
agers and strategy/performance (Day and
Lord 1988; Hambrick and Mason 1984;
Miller and Toulouse 1986). However, the
results fail to establish a clear relationship
between the influence of the manager and
SME success.
This lack of coherence can be attributed
to the divergence of previous research into
260 JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
two different substreams. While some re-
searchers study the association between
managerial characteristics and strategic
orientation (Hofer and Davoust 1977;
Leontiades 1982; Kerr 1982; Wiersema,
Van der Pol, and Messer 1980), others ex-
amine the linkage between these charac-
teristics and performance (Child 1974;
Norburn and Birley 1988; Virnay and Tush-
man 1986). On the other hand, certain
works consider both relationships but
treat them independently (Day and Lord
1988; Miller and Toulouse 1986). This
study posits that these approaches are
complementary. In particular, we propose
a tripartite model covering three con-
structs: individual characteristics, strategy,
and success within a systematic approach
following the methodology of Van de Ven
and Drazin (1985) and Venkatraman and
Prescott (1990), an approach that enables
us to define and test such an alignment.
Managerial Characteristics,
Strategy, and Success
The research that examines the linkage
between managerial characteristics and or-
ganizational success has focused on the
search for specific manager characteristics
associated with various measures of suc-
cess. For example, Norburn and Birley
(1988, p. 236) found that “manager teams
which demonstrate a preponderance of
output functional experience, multiple
company employment and wider educa-
tional training will outperform those
which do not . . .” Similarly, Virnay and
Tushman (1986) showed that the profiles
of management teams of high-perform-
ance firms were significantly different from
the management teams in firms with poor
performance. Along these lines, Child
(1974) found evidence indicating strong
associations between management youth
and firm growth. More recently, Kilduff,
Angelmar, and Mehra (2000), using data
from 35 simulated firms, analyzed the re-
lationship between demographic diversity
in teams and firm performance. Results
showed the existence of a significant rela-
tionship between these variables. How-
ever, these studies are based on the
assumption that the characteristics of man-
agers have an independent and direct im-
pact on organizational success. They also
fail to examine the source and strength of
this impact, which is a considerable limita-
tion. We suggest that in order to under-
stand the managerial characteristics/
organizational success relationship more
fully, it is necessary first to consider the
process by which managers influence or-
ganizational outcomes.
Some researchers have emphasized the
link between specific managerial charac-
teristics and the strategic behavior of the
firm. For example, Miller, Kets de Vries,
and Toulouse (1982) investigated the
question of whether a relationship exists
between the personality of a CEO and his
or her strategy-making behavior. They
found that firms led by confident and ag-
gressive CEOs adopted riskier and more
innovative strategies. In a similar way,
Channon (1979) showed associations
between CEO characteristics and the inter-
nationalization strategy of their organiza-
tions. In an examination of the linkage
between diversification strategies and the
functional backgrounds of CEOs, Song
(1982) reported that firms pursuing inter-
nal diversification tended to have CEOs
with backgrounds in marketing and pro-
duction. On the other hand, firms that
pursued acquisitive diversification were
more likely to have CEOs with back-
grounds in accounting, finance, or law.
ENTRIALGO
While these studies establish that manage-
rial characteristics influence organiza-
tional strategy, they again fail to elucidate
the process by which this influence is
exerted.
To summarize, we can conclude that
although research efforts have focused
on two different substreams that inde-
pendently analyze the influence of
managerial characteristics on either or-
ganizational strategy or success, there is
little theoretical focus on the process by
which managerial influence impacts or-
ganizational strategy or success. The pri-
mary goals of this study are to integrate the
two substreams and to provide a theoreti-
cal explanation of the process by which
leaders influence organizational out-
comes. Based on the “upper echelon” per-
spective (Hambrick and Mason 1984), the
concept of coalignment between strategy
and managerial characteristics is intro-
duced. The success implications of this
coalignment are analyzed, and a theoreti-
cal model is developed and empirically
tested.
The Process of Managerial
Influence
The strategic choice paradigm (Child
1972) postulates that key decision-makers
have considerable control over an organi-
zation’s future direction. The upper eche-
lon perspective articulated by Hambrick
and Mason (1984) provides a framework
within which the ways managers influence
organizational outcomes can be inter-
preted. In a classic study, these authors
develop a model based on the research of
the behavioral theorists (Cyert and March
1963; March and Simon 1958) to explain
the link between managerial charac-
teristics and strategy. They describe the
process of strategic choice as a perceptual
one that occurs in a series of sequential
steps. This model suggests that managerial
choices reflect the attributes of these
managers. Thus, it can be argued that,
when faced with the same objective
261
environment, different managers will
make different decisions (including strat-
egy decisions) based on their individual
characteristics. This makes apparent the
critical role managers’ attributes play in
determining a firm’s strategic direction.
The importance of managerial influ-
ence also is reflected in typologies of stra-
tegic orientation. For example, several
typologies of strategy (Leontiades 1982;
Wiersema, Van der Pol, and Messer (1980)
suggest that the explosive strategy, de-
signed to improve competitive position in
the short-run, best will be administered by
a pioneer-type manager. Similarly, Leon-
tiades (1982) suggests that a steady state
strategy would require a manager who is
an activist, growth entrepreneur, product
manager and R&D planner. Many other
researchers have reached similar conclu-
sions about the need to match a manager’s
personality to firm strategy (Hofer and Da-
voust 1977; Kerr 1982; Miles and Snow
1978). Thus, it can be hypothesized that
firms pursuing markedly dissimilar strate-
gies will be led by managers with markedly
dissimilar attributes.
If the argument matching managers to
strategy is valid, then this match must have
implications on the firm’s success. Since
managers influence the strategic direction
of the firm, a coalignment between their
characteristics and the organization’s strat-
egy seems necessary to the organization’s
success. The absence of such a coalign-
ment will result in a conflict between the
firm’s resources and capabilities and
managerial decisions. This conflict would
manifest itself in suboptimal resource de-
ployments, failure to develop an organiza-
tional structure strengthening the strategy,
and a lack of clear direction, all of which
would have a negative impact on perform-
ance. Thus, unlike previous research that
has attempted to establish direct associa-
tions between managerial characteristics
and success, we argue that it is the coalign-
ment between managerial attributes and
organizational strategy that affects per-
formance. Specifically, it is hypothesized
262 JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
that firms in which the manager’s charac-
teristics are aligned with the requirements
of the firm’s strategies will outperform
firms lacking such an alignment.
A Research Model
In this work we propose a research
model that attempts to account for SME
success by means of a coalignment be-
tween managerial characteristics and firm
strategy. Specifically, we propose a tripar-
tite model encompassing the three distinct
constructs (firm strategy, managerial char-
acteristics, and organizational perform-
ance), incorporating coalignment as the
independent variable. Unlike prior re-
search which assumes an alignment be-
tween strategy and managers, this study
breaks new ground by using the systems
approach (Van de Ven and Drazin 1985;
Venkatraman and Prescott 1990) to define
explicitly and to test coalignment. To this
end we employ the strategic typology de-
veloped by Dess, Lumpkin, and Covin
(1997), and a set of demographic variables
to describe managerial characteristics.
Dess, Lumpkin, and Covin (1997)
identify three different kinds of strategic
behavior: adaptive, conservative (simple
and participative), and entrepreneurial.
This typology bears great similarity to that
proposed by Miles and Snow (1978). En-
trepreneurial behavior is seen as externally
oriented and marked by the introduction
of new products and the application of
new marketing policies. The top managers
who are in continuous contact with the
outside, developing alternative responses
to emerging tendencies, are the ones who
bring about change in the industry. How-
ever, their emphasis on innovation pre-
vents their firms from being totally
efficient. This behavior is similar, to a large
extent, to that of the prospectors of Miles
and Snow (1978).
At the other extreme is conservative
behavior, internally oriented with an em-
phasis on penetrating existing markets and
improving operative efficiency. Normally,
firms developing this type of behavior are
not pioneers in new product develop-
ment, and they tend to overlook the
changes that do not directly affect their
territories. This is similar to the defensor
behavior as defined by Miles and Snow
(1978). The main difference between par-
ticipative and simple behaviors lies in the
fact that the former stimulates worker par-
ticipation in strategy-making.
Finally, adaptive behavior exhibits fea-
tures of entrepreneurial and conservative
behaviors. Adaptive firms maintain a rela-
tively stable base of activities while at the
same time seeking the selective develop-
ment of attractive products and/or new
markets. These firms do not anticipate
changes but rather adapt to them as they
occur. This is similar to the analyzer behav-
ior of Miles and Snow (1978).
In addition to these strategy types, this
study considers a set of managerial charac-
teristics that can be theoretically associ-
ated with them. Each of these variables are
discussed briefly below.
Tenure
The managers of internally oriented
organizations tend to place greater em-
phasis on operational aspects of the
business in order to increase overall effi-
ciency. Hence, these firms are expected
to be led by managers who have devel-
oped extensive experience within the
firm (Gupta 1984; Kotter 1982). That is
why it would be logical to think that
conservative managers typically have
long tenures both in the organization
and at their post. In contrast, entre-
preneurial managers are expected to have
shorter tenures.
Age
A negative relationship is expected to
exist between entrepreneurial behavior
and an individual’s age. One can speculate
that younger people tend to be more will-
ing to take risks than older ones, possibly
because older individuals may have dimin-
ished physical and mental abilities (Child
ENTRIALGO
1972) or may be less able to generate new
ideas and learn new behaviors and be-
cause having these characteristics makes
one fearful of risks. Older people also may
have a stronger psychological commit-
ment to the status quo. And older individu-
als may have reached a time in their lives
when financial and career security is of
greatest importance. Social circles and re-
tirement expectations become key factors
in their lives. At this time, they tend to
avoid any risky action that might affect
these elements.
Level of Education
An individual’s level of formal educa-
tion reflects cognitive abilities and quali-
ties. The highest levels of formal education
are associated with a high ability to process
information and to discriminate between
a wide variety of alternatives. Educated
individuals are more likely to tolerate am-
biguity and to show themselves to be more
able in complex situations (Dollinger
1985). Furthermore, the highest levels of
education tend to be associated with re-
ceptivity to innovation (Becker 1970; Kim-
berly and Evanisko 1981; Rogers and
Shoemaker 1971). In short, it is to be
expected that individuals with higher lev-
els of education are more likely to adopt
entrepreneurial behavior. Further, Hitt
and Tyler (1991) found that the type of
academic education managers had influ-
enced their strategic decisions—that is,
certain academic disciplines are more ori-
ented to innovation and change than
others. Thus, since the sciences and engi-
neering are related to invention and inno-
vation, it is to be expected that these
disciplines are associated with the willing-
ness to innovate to a greater extent than
law, economics, and business.
Functional Experience
Hambrick and Mason (1984) suggest
that managers make different strategic
decisions based on their experiences in
different functional areas. Hence, it is hy-
pothesized that individuals adopting
263
entrepreneurial strategies have experi-
ence in the areas of marketing and re-
search and development (R&D), as these
functional areas are more oriented to
change and innovation than other areas.
By contrast, managers using conservative
strategies are expected to have greater ex-
perience in the areas of finance and pro-
duction, given these areas’ relative stability
and emphasis on efficiency.
Coalignment and Success
It has already been posited here that
positive success outcomes would be asso-
ciated with firms that more completely
align the characteristics of their managers
with the requirements of their strategies.
Recently, Beal and Yasai-Ardekam (2000)
analyzed the performance consequences
of aligning a manager’s functional expe-
riences with the firm’s competitive
strategies, concluding that superior per-
formance occurs when a manager’s func-
tional experience is congruent with the
requirements of the firm’s strategies. Thus,
it is to be expected that entrepreneurial
firms that are managed by leaders with
entrepreneurial characteristics will per-
form better than entrepreneurial firms
managed by leaders without entrepre-
neurial characteristics; conversely, firms
with a conservative strategy managed by
leaders with conservative characteristics
will perform better than those with incon-
gruent managers.
Field Work and Sample
Characteristics
The research was initiated in June 1997
with the questionnaire design. In order to
test the feasibility of the survey, a pretest
was performed in northern Spain and ac-
cordingly was refined. The definitive ques-
tionnaire later was mailed to 2,500 firms
in Spain and randomly was selected
among all the sectors in a database pro-
vided by Dun & Bradstreet. In order to
increase the response rate, the mailing was
followed by telephone contact with the
264 JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
managers of approximately 1,000 of the
firms. Some questionnaires were not com-
plete, so some follow-up interviews were
conducted to obtain the missing informa-
tion. The results were 233 valid surveys,
representing a response rate of 10 percent.
The sample firms were drawn from a
population of 16,000 firms with between
5 and 500 employees. Firms operated in a
variety of sectors including mining, con-
struction, food industry, wood, paper,
chemicals, and transportation. The geo-
graphical area is the entire Spanish na-
tional territory.
Measures
The database used in this research has
its origin in a survey made up of items
measuring a diverse set of variables. In
particular, the items are organized in two
main blocks. First were questions about
how the top manager makes decisions in
the firm. More specifically, the items con-
stituting this scale probed levels of innova-
tion, risk-taking, and proactivity, using
five-point Likert scales. Entrepreneurial
strategy was measured by calculating the
sum of the three indicators (Dean et al.
1993; Thomas, Litschert, and Ramaswami
1991). The Cronbach alpha coefficient
reached a value of 0.765. The second block
of items sought demographic data about
the manager (age, tenure, formal educa-
tion, and functional experience). We have
opted to use a subjective marker of the
results, calculated as a weighted average of
the manager’s satisfaction in different per-
formance markers—economic and finan-
c ia l pro f it a bi lit y an d gr o wt h — t h e
weighting being the relative importance
conceded to each of these markers in rela-
tion to the sum of the importance given to
the three markers.
Results
The aim of this study is to analyze the
influence of managerial characteristics on
organizational success through strategy
implementation. To this end, the first step
consisted in defining homogeneous strate-
gic groups to later analyze the coalignment
among individual attributes, strategy, and
organizational success. First, in order to ex-
amine the coalignment between manager
characteristics and firm strategy, each top
manager was classified into one of the iden-
tified groups and a Student’s t test was ap-
plied. Then, in order to observe the
existence of significant differences in success
due to coalignment, the successful managers
were defined for each group. The group of
successful managers is made up of 20 per-
cent of the managers whose firms for each
strategy reported the best performance. Fol-
lowing this, differences were observed be-
tween the ideal characteristics—those of the
successful managers group—and those ob-
served for each type of manager. Spearman’s
correlation coefficient was applied to study
the correlation between these differences
and the success attained.
Step 1: Identifying Homogeneous
Strategic Types
According to Dess, Lumpkin, and Covin
(1997), the four types of strategic behavior
(simple, participative, adaptative, and en-
trepreneurial) should be observed in each
industry. Nevertheless, there is no evidence
to show a clear distribution of the different
types of strategic behavior in different con-
texts. To identify the two extremes of strate-
gic behavior, a preliminary analysis was done
by conceptualizing strategic orientation as a
continuum, with entrepreneurial and con-
servative firms occupying the two extremes.
To construct the continuum, three variables
were considered: innovation, risk-taking,
and being first-mover. These variables were
chosen specifically for several reasons. Ac-
cording to Dess, Lumpkin, and Covin
(1997), these are the variables that best ex-
plain entrepreneurial behavior. Second, we
performed a Spearman correlation analysis
between each pair of variables, observing
high correlations among the different com-
binations of these three variables. Similarly,
a factorial analysis between different vari-
ables related to the strategic behavior en-
ENTRIALGO
abled us to generate a factor constituted
by these three dimensions. In this way, the
measures in each dimension for each firm
were summed, and the firms were arrayed
in ascending order. A median split method
was adopted to identify strategic types
(Drazin and Van de Ven 1985; Romanelli
1989). The top 30 percent (behaviors hav-
ing the highest summed score) and the
bottom 30 percent (behaviors having the
lowest summed score) were denoted re-
spectively as entrepreneurial and conser-
vative.
To establish the reliability of the above
strategy typing approach, a Student’s t-test
was applied, revealing statistically signifi-
cant differences between the two strategy
groups. The entrepreneurial firms ob-
tained a significantly higher score in inno-
vation, risk-taking, and being first-mover
compared to the rest.
Step 2: Analyzing the Strategy–
Manager Match
A Student’s t-test was then performed
to determine whether the managers’
demographic characteristics were in fact
associated with their firms’ distinct strate-
gic postures. Table 1 shows the results of
this analysis. Results reveal no significant
differences between conservative and en-
trepreneurial managers with respect to
age or tenure.
However, there were significant differ-
ences related to the managers’ experience
and type of education. With respect to
functional experience, entrepreneurial
managers had a greater level of marketing
experience than the conservative manag-
ers (p=.047) and a much lower degree of
finance experience (p=.003). Further, al-
though no significant differences are
found for level of education, it was found
that entrepreneurial managers more often
had an engineering education (p= .035)
than the conservative managers.
Step 3: Specification of Coalignment
Coalignment was conceptualized using
the systems approach (Drazin and Van de
265
 Table 1
Summary of t-Test Results for Strategy Variables
Characteristics Conservative Entrepreneurial Significance
Managers Managers

Age 4.43 4.51 0.296

Finance Experience 4.62 2.31 0.003
Marketing Experience 4.54 5.10 0.047
R&D Experience 2.94 3.31 0.659
Level of Education 2.60 2.63 0.438
Engineering Education 4.80 5.30 0.035
Tenure in Firm 14.19 13.95 0.975
Tenure in Position 10.21 10.97 0.552

Ven 1985; Venkatraman and Prescott
1990), which defines it as the degree of
correspondence to an externally specified
ideal profile. As this correspondence to the
empirically derived ideal profile increases,
organizational performance should also
increase and vice versa (Miller 1981;
Venkatraman 1990). To arrive at an ideal
profile for this study, the 20 percent of
firms with the highest measure of success
in each sample (entrepreneurial and con-
servative) were used to derive stand-
ardized mean scores for the manager
characteristics specifying the two ideal
profiles. Table 2 illustrates the differences
in the ideal profiles of entrepreneurial and
conservative managers when compared to
the average profile of a manager in the
industry.
Step 4: Testing the Success
Implications of the Coalignment
The degree of correspondence be-
tween the ideal manager characteristics
and the observed managerial charac-
teristics of any given firm was computed
using the Euclidean distance metric sug-
gested by Van de Ven and Drazin (1985).1
This indicator measures the distance be-
tween the observed managerial charac-
teristics of any given firm and the
corresponding ideal profile in Euclidean
space. The degree of correspondence
measured by the distance metric then is
correlated with the appropriate indicator.
As the distance from the ideal manager
characteristics (misalignment) increases,
firm performance should decline if the
central thesis of the model is to be sup-
ported. The results of the correlation
analysis between the degree of misalign-
ment and performance are presented in
Table 3.
For each strategy type, differences were
analyzed for both the entire set of demo-
graphic characteristics and for the subset
variables that had proven to be significant
in the first part of the model testing—
namely, functional experience and nature
of education (see Table 1). As can be seen
in Table 3, significant linkages between
managerial characteristics and firm suc-
cess were found for managers of en-
trepreneurial firms. However, for the

∑d
2
1 DIST = i
X is − X js
where Xis = the score for the ideal characteristics on the sth managerial characteristics and
Xjs = the score for the jth firm in each subsample on the sth managerial characteristic.

266 JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

 Table 2
Ideal Characteristics of Conservative
and Entrepreneurial Managers
(Average/Standard Deviation)
Characteristic Ideal Average of All Ideal
Entrepreneurial Managers Conservative
Managers in Sample Managers
(n=132)

Age 4.71/1.89 4.47/1.98 3.35/1.73

Finance Experience 1.26/2.83 3.43/6.53 3.00/6.78
R&D Experience 1.15/2.35 3.13/6.84 1.86/4.35
Marketing Experience 8.14/9.33 4.83/7.39 3.71/6.74
Production Experience 1.63/4.68 5.71/8.55 2.50/6.65
Engineering Education 4.07/3.33 5.06/3.47 2.94/3.03
Level of Education 2.21/1.36 2.62/1.32 2.14/0.86
Tenure in Firm 14.42/9.17 14.07/8.89 10.49/6.77
Tenure in Position 8.98/6.57 10.60/7.24 6.77/4.91

Table 3
Relationship between Misalignmenta and Success
Manager Type Spearman's Coefficient

Entrepreneurial Managers
Significant Variables Onlyb –0.256*
All the Variables –0.309*
Conservative Managers
Significant Variables Onlyb –0.205
All the Variables –0.243

aDifference between optimal and observed managerial characteristics.

bFunctional experience and type of education.
*p<.05

conservative managers, no significant dif- characteristics/strategy coalignment and

ferences were noted. Nevertheless, in all
cases—both for entrepreneurial and con-
servative managers and using both the en-
tire set and the subset of significant
variables—the coefficient is negative. The
consistent direction of these results offers
some support for the hypothesis positing
a relationship between the managerial
SME success.
Conclusions
The central objective of this study was
to explore the impact on organizational
success of the coalignment between mana-
gerial characteristics and firm strategy. In
contrast to previous research that attempts

ENTRIALGO 267
partial analyses of the relationships among
the variables, this study provides a more
holistic model. The model makes a signifi-
cant contribution since it provides a theo-
retical framework for integrating prior
research findings and explains the process
by which an organizational’s leader influ-
ences its outcomes. The empirical results
support the linkage specified in the model.
To summarize the results in the context
of prior research, the finding that neither
age nor tenure (in the organization and in
the managerial position) explains the man-
ager’s type of strategic behavior contra-
dicts the results obtained by Thomas,
Litschert, and Ramaswami (1991). The
findings that entrepreneurial managers
were more likely to have marketing expe-
rience and conservative managers were
more likely to have experience in finance
are similar to those obtained by Gupta
and Govindarajan (1984) and Thomas,
Litschert, and Ramaswami (1991). They
found that experience in output-related
functions (such as marketing and R&D)
favors success in entrepreneurial behav-
iors, whereas experience in input-related
functions (such as finance or production)
favors success in conservative behaviors.
This study also demonstrated clearly
that the coalignment between managerial
characteristics and strategy has significant
success implications for entrepreneurial
managers. Hence, the differences between
the ideal characteristics and the observed
ones also have implications for success for
entrepreneurial managers—the lower the
coalignment between the ideal and ob-
served managerial attributes, the lower the
organizational success.
Limitations
The study was conducted with empiri-
cal data collected in 1996 from small firms
in Spain. Interpretations should be made
with these facts in mind. To what extent is
it possible to make generalizations to
other countries, time periods, and firm
sizes? First, the influence of the managers
can vary with firm size (Miller 1983). Also,
268 JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
the Spanish small business environment
probably differs from what is found in
other countries (Cox, Lobel, and McLeod
1991). Finally, the economy and chal-
lenges for firms in the mid-1990s were
different from the years before. Despite
these differences, we think that the find-
ings can be generalized beyond the empiri-
cal setting but should be subject to
validating research in other settings.
There are a few other limitations of this
study that suggest possibilities for future
research. We have only studied the influ-
ence of variables of a demographic nature,
although there are other cognitive and
affective variables that also can account for
performance under conservative or en-
trepreneurial orientations (Barsade et al.
2000; Kilduff, Angelmar, and Mehra 2000).
Similarly, it may prove to be of interest to
analyze types of strategic orientations
other than those analyzed in this work
(adaptive and participative, for example).
Future research also could focus on the
sequence of the influence of managerial
traits on performance. That is, a study
might test whether characteristics directly
influence process or rather affect the
business motivations that subsequently in-
fluences performance. Finally, other con-
tingency analyses could be undertaken,
such as the influence of demographic data
in different industrial contexts.
Montserrat Entrialgo
Oviedo University
Oviedo, Spain
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