Transformational leadership and market orientation: Implications for the implementation of competitive strategies and business unit performance

Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, particularly the competency-based view of strategy making, the authors develop and test an integrated model of the source–positional advantage–firm performance chain. The model postulates transformational leadership and market orientation as managerial-based and transformational-based competencies, respectively. Such competencies should lead to marketplace positional advantages through competitive strategies such as innovation differentiation, marketing differentiation, and low cost. In turn, these positional advantages contribute to different firm performance metrics, specifically, effectiveness and efficiency. The authors discuss some implications for competitive strategy theory using a resource- (competency-) based perspective, along with managerial implications.