The impact of CEOS’ transformational leadership and ethical integrity on strategic orientation to corporate social responsibility

Little systematic research has been conducted to advance understanding about the role of transformational leadership to explain a corporate strategy focused on social responsibility. Using data from 50 Portuguese firms, we examined the role played by transformational leadership and its four dimensions, namely: idealized influence; inspirational motivation; intellectual stimulation, and; individualized consideration as well as ethical integrity in firms’ strategic orientation to corporate social responsibility. The results indicated that transformational leadership is significantly positively related to a firm’s strategic orientation to corporate social responsibility. However, leaders’ ethical integrity was not significantly linked to the adoption of corporate social responsibility practices. These findings suggest that further research is needed regarding leaders’ ethical integrity and firms’ social responsibility orientation. Practitioners may also benefit from these findings by using them to transform themselves into “truly transformational leaders” who incorporate corporate social responsibility as a core strategic value within their firms.