CEO leadership styles and the implementation of organizational diversity practices: moderating effects of social values and age

Drawing on strategic choice theory, we investigate the influence of CEO leadership styles and personal attributes on the implementation of organizational diversity management practices. Specifically, we examined CEO transformational and transactional leadership in relation to organizational diversity practices and whether CEO social values and age may moderate these relationships. Our results suggest that transformational leadership is most strongly associated with the implementation of diversity practices. Transactional leadership is also related to the implementation of diversity management practices when either CEO social values or age are relatively high. These findings extend previous work examining predictors of diversity management in organizations and highlight the central role that organizational leaders may play in the successful implementation of these practices