The determinants and performance consequences of CEO strategic advice seeking

Leveraging insights from research on strategic leadership, this article theorizes that CEOs’ personal characteristics predict the extent to which CEOs seek strategic advice from executives at other organizations. Further, seeking strategic advice from executives at other organizations is argued to improve organizational performance. The hypotheses are tested with survey data from 287 CEOs of nonprofit agencies in Florida and archival data on organizational performance. Results indicate that CEOs with longer organizational tenure and a higher need for cognitive closure (NFCC) seek less advice from executives at other organizations. Results also show that organizations with CEOs that seek more strategic advice have better performance. These findings contribute to the strategic leadership literature in two general ways. First, through the lens of upper echelons theory, the study highlights three attributes of CEOs that help to explain their advice-seeking behavior: CEO age, CEO organizational tenure, and CEO NFCC. Second, grounded in network theory, the study draws attention to the beneficial effect of CEO advice seeking on organizational performance (i.e. growth in financial donations)