We examine the influence of top management teams' (TMTs') integrative complexity and decentralization of decision making on corporate social performance. We argue that both factors increase TMT ability to gather information on, and attend to, stakeholder needs, thereby yielding higher corporate social performance. We further predict that decentralization moderates the relationship between integrative complexity and corporate social performance in such a way that the relationship is stronger under conditions of centralization. Using a Q-sort methodology, which translates complex qualitative observations into quantitative metrics, we examined integrative complexity and decentralization in 61 Fortune 500 firms and found support for our predictions.

Recent research has identified men’s facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) as a reliable predictor of aggressive tendencies and behavior. Other research, however, has failed to replicate the fWHR-aggression relationship and has questioned whether previous findings are robust. In the current paper, we synthesize existing work by conducting a meta-analysis to estimate whether and how fWHR predicts aggression. Our results indicate a small, but significant, positive relationship between men’s fWHR and aggression.

Although managers and researchers have invested considerable effort into understanding corporate social responsibility (CSR), less is known about corporate social irresponsibility (CSiR). Drawing on strategic leadership and moral licensing research, we address this gap by considering the relationship between CSR and CSiR. We predict that prior CSR is positively associated with subsequent CSiR because the moral credits achieved through CSR enable leaders to engage in less ethical stakeholder treatment. Further, we hypothesize that leaders’ moral identity symbolization, or the degree to which being moral is expressed outwardly to the public through actions and behavior, will moderate the CSR–CSiR relationship, such that the relationship will be stronger when CEOs are high on moral identity symbolization rather than low on moral identity symbolization. Through an archival study of 49 Fortune 500 firms, we find support for our hypotheses.

Researchers have theorized that innate personal traits are related to leadership success. Although links between psychological characteristics and leadership success have been well established, research has yet to identify any objective physical traits of leaders that predict organizational performance. In the research reported here, we identified leaders' facial structure as a specific physical trait that correlates with organizational performance. Specifically, we found that firms whose male CEOs have wider faces (relative to facial height) achieve superior financial performance. Decision-making dynamics within a firm's leadership team moderate this effect, such that the relationship between a given CEO's facial measurements and his firm's financial performance is stronger in firms with cognitively simple leadership teams.

The facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) has been identified as a reliable predictor of men’s behavior, with researchers focusing on evolutionary selection pressures as the underlying mechanism explaining these relationships. In this paper, we complement this approach and examine the extent to which social processes also determine the extent to which men’s fWHR serves as a behavioral cue. Specifically, we propose that observers’ treatment of target men based on the targets’ fWHR subsequently affects behavior, leading the targets to behave in ways that are consistent with the observers’ expectations (i.e., a self-fulfilling prophecy). Results from four studies demonstrate that individuals behave more selfishly when interacting with men with greater fWHRs, and this selfish behavior, in turn, elicits selfish behavior in others.