Do Strategists Matter? Sources and Consequences of Chief Strategy Officer's Perceived Discretion

In our study, we develop and test a conceptual model of the individual-level sources and consequences of the chief strategy officer’s (CSO’s) perceived discretion in different organizational situations. Using archival and unique survey data of 121 CSOs of European firms, we find that the variation in the perceptions of discretion is partially a consequence of the CSO’s structural and expert power as well as of the CSO’s cultural power distance. We also find that the CSO’s perceived discretion negatively affects firm performance, however, only in situations in which the CSO actually has little discretion. The study contributes to research on managerial discretion by extending the analysis to the individual level and by considering the discretion of an important senior executive other than the CEO.