When leaders are marketers: a duality perspective on the effect of openness to experience on marketing behaviors and the moderating role of bottom-line mentality

While research has considered the effects of CEO and top-management team members’ characteristics on strategic initiatives (e.g. marketing), less research has examined when non-executive leaders directly contribute to these initiatives. In this research, drawing from the duality framework on leader characteristics, we examine how leader openness to experience is associated with their increased engagement in marketing behaviors (e.g. recruiting new customers). Across two field studies, including an exploratory sample of small business owners and a sample of non-executive leaders in the outpatient physical therapy industry, we find that openness to experience was related to leaders’ likelihood of executing marketing functions. Additionally, this relationship was weakened when leaders had a primary focus on short-term financial outcomes (i.e., high bottom-line mentality). We further link marketing to unit-level performance in a subsample of Study 2, suggesting that non-executive leaders’ marketing behaviors can impact objective organizational performance.