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PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
2011, 64, 829–864
DEVELOPING EXECUTIVE LEADERS: THE RELATIVE
CONTRIBUTION OF COGNITIVE ABILITY,
PERSONALITY, AND THE ACCUMULATION
OF WORK EXPERIENCE IN PREDICTING
STRATEGIC THINKING COMPETENCY
LISA DRAGONI
ILR School
Cornell University
IN-SUE OH
School of Business
Virginia Commonwealth University
PAUL VANKATWYK
PDI Ninth House
PAUL E. TESLUK
School of Management
University at Buffalo
We conceptually define and empirically investigate the accumulation of
work experience—a concept that refers to the extent to which executives
have amassed varied levels of roles and responsibilities (i.e., contributor,
manager, lead strategist) in each of the key work activities that they have
encountered over the course of their careers. In studying executives’
work experience accumulation, we consider key antecedents such as
executives’ cognitive ability and personality traits, namely Extraversion
and Openness to Experience, and examine the value of work experience
accumulation on executives’ strategic thinking competency. Analyses
of multisource data from 703 executives revealed 3 key findings: (a)
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 23rd Annual Conference of the
Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology held in San Francisco, California in
2008. We thank Chris Carraher at PDI Ninth House for supporting the data collection and
Frank Schmidt for providing advice throughout the data analysis. We also appreciated the
helpful suggestions from Jeff Johnson, our two anonymous reviewers, Murray Barrick, and
members of the Women’s ILR Writing Group on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Much
of this research was conducted while some of us were affiliated with other institutions:
Lisa Dragoni worked on this research while at the University of Iowa, In-Sue Oh was
affiliated with the University of Iowa and the University of Alberta, and Paul Tesluk was
on the faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park. We thank our colleagues at our
previous and current universities for their support and encouragement.
Correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to Lisa Dragoni, De-
partment of Human Resource Studies, Ives Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853;
ld284@cornell.edu or In-Sue Oh, Department of Management, School of Business, Vir-
ginia Commonwealth University, 301 W. Main Street, Box 844000, Richmond, VA 23284;
isoh@vcu.edu or insue.oh@gmail.com.
C2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
829
830 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
accumulated work experience positively relates to executives’ strategic
thinking competency after controlling for individual characteristics and
other measures of work experience; (b) executives’ cognitive ability
demonstrates the strongest and most positive relationship to executives’
strategic thinking competency; and (c) extraverted executives tend to
achieve higher levels of work experience accumulation. Relative weight
analyses also indicated that cognitive ability and accumulated work
experience are the 2 most important predictors for executives’ strategic
thinking competency among the other predictors. These findings are
discussed in light of their practical implications.
Leadership concerns are pervasive in contemporary organizations. For
instance, CEOs report top-management succession and finding qualified
managerial talent among their top challenges (The Conference Board,
2007). Commensurate with this concern, an interview study revealed that
CEOs devote as much as 50% of their time to leadership development and
talent management (Economist Intelligence Unit & Development Dimen-
sions International, 2006; Silzer, 2002). Others note the risk of discounting
the criticality of developing leadership talent: “If leadership development
has not been the primary focus for CEOs, senior management teams,
and boards, their organizations will be more likely to make wrong de-
cisions. Firms may be forced to promote untested, possibly unqualified,
junior managers. Or they might have to look outside for executives, who
could then find it difficult to adjust to their new companies and cultures”
(Cohn, Khurana, & Reeves, 2008, p. 45). The criticality of focusing on
leadership development is likely to only increase given the supply and
demand dynamics emerging with increased globalization and an aging
population. Specifically, with the rise of emerging markets in Asia and
Latin America, there is an increase in the worldwide demand of talented
leaders, although at the same time, there is a diminishing supply of ex-
perienced leaders in Japan, Europe, and the Americas (Silzer & Dowell,
2010).
As senior leaders struggle with addressing these leadership-related
supply and demand challenges, it becomes imperative to focus resources
on developing those leadership skills and capabilities that are most crit-
ical to the business. In this case, CEOs consistently cite the strategic
positioning of their organization among their chief concerns (The Con-
ference Board, 2007). Quite simply, to remain competitive and ensure
an ample supply of capable leaders for the future, organizations need to
cultivate leaders with what we refer to as strategic thinking competency—
that is, the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to detect market op-
portunities, formulate a vision to capitalize on these opportunities, and
engineer feasible strategies to realize organizational and stakeholder
value.
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 831
Grooming leadership talent via work experiences has been touted as
critical for nearly 2 decades (McCall, 2010). Yet, three issues remain
unclear that limit the utility of extant research in determining how to
develop strategically competent executives. First, more specific exami-
nations of the relation between work experiences and specific leadership
competencies are needed. The overwhelming majority of research on
work experiences relates work experience, conceived of in various ways,
to broad, generic outcomes such as learning, managerial competency, or
leader performance (e.g., McCauley, Ruderman, Ohlott, & Morrow, 1994;
Van Iddekinge, Ferris, & Heffner, 2009). Although helpful at a general
level, the pressing practical question of how to best groom leaders capable
of strategically positioning their organizations is left largely uninformed
by extant research.
Second, we need to conceive of work experience more broadly and
recognize that it involves multiple work activities or assignments, some
of which may be similar and reinforcing. Existing leadership research
either considers tenure or times a particular task is performed (e.g., Bor-
man, Hanson, Oppler, Pulakos, & White, 1993; Van Iddekinge et al.,
2009), which does not capture the challenge and nature of the experience
encountered (Tesluk & Jacobs, 1998). Or, leadership researchers focus
the nature of a singular job assignment in isolation of how this assign-
ment may relate to other work experiences the developing leader may
have encountered (e.g., Brutus, Ruderman, Ohlott, & McCauley, 2000;
McCauley et al., 1994). The result is a deficient representation of leader
experience—one that either fails to account for the multitude of work
activities performed and how similar experiences might accumulate and
reinforce one another over time or is incapable of providing insight into
the nature of the experiences encountered over a career. These conceptu-
alizations are particularly limiting when considering executives who have
held numerous important job assignments over their careers and who have
similar levels of tenure.
Third, a more comprehensive understanding of the role of individual
differences in leadership development via work experiences is needed.
A very limited set of studies have considered the individual character-
istics that shape selection or movement into developmentally rich work
experiences (Dragoni, Tesluk, Russell, & Oh, 2009) or those individual
differences that determine how much is gained from these assignments
(DeRue & Wellman, 2009; Dragoni et al., 2009). This type of inquiry
is valuable because it could reveal and validate useful selection crite-
ria for certain types of work experiences. Moreover, the broader lead-
ership research points to cognitive ability and personality dimensions,
such as Extraversion and Openness to Experience, as promising individ-
ual characteristics that may shape the selection and movement into work
832 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
experiences (cf., Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002; Judge, Colbert,
& Ilies, 2004; Lord, DeVader, & Alliger, 1986). Surprisingly, the relation
between cognitive ability, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience, and
developmentally rich work experiences has received virtually no research
attention.
Our purpose is to address these limitations by empirically investi-
gating the types of executives who successfully accumulate work expe-
riences and the impact of this accumulated experience on executives’
strategic thinking competency. We define the accumulation of work ex-
perience as the extent to which executives have amassed varied levels
of roles and responsibilities (i.e., contributor, manager, lead strategist)
in each of the key work activities that they have encountered over the
course of their careers. Executives who exhibit a greater extent of ex-
perience accumulation have more consistently had multiple levels of in-
volvement across various work activities—they have (a) contributed to
the execution of a project, (b) assumed managerial responsibility, and
(c) led and strategized the effort by setting the overall direction and
maintaining ultimate responsibility. Executives who have not encoun-
tered these varying levels of roles and responsibilities for each key work
activity as consistently during their careers have enjoyed less experience
accumulation.
Consider, for example, Executive A and Executive B who have both
faced three key work activities: Each has (a) worked on a cross-functional
team, (b) been involved with an executive committee, and (c) been part
of a task force requiring immediate action to ameliorate a crisis. For
each of these work activities, Executive A began his involvement by first
providing input (i.e., contributing); then managing the team, task force,
or committee (i.e., managing); and eventually crafting the vision and
strategy for each group and creating sufficient momentum to implement
these ideas (i.e., leading). On the other hand, Executive B assumed a
managerial role for two activities and has been charged with being the
lead strategist for the third activity. In the case of Executive A, there is
more of an accumulation of experience, with each exposure to the cross-
functional team, executive committee, or task force involving a different
level of responsibility. Although Executive B has been challenged with
rich experiences, she has not had as many opportunities to encounter
these three work activities in a various capacities—that is, she has not
played the role of contributor in any of these activities, has not managed
in one of these activities, and has not been the lead strategist in two
of these activities. As a result, her career demonstrates less experience
accumulation than Executive A’s.
This conceptualization of work experience more successfully captures
the richness of experience than what has been conceived previously. In
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 833
the accumulated experience concept, we incorporate how many times a
particular activity has been performed, which is in keeping with prior re-
search (e.g., Lance, Hedge, & Alley, 1989; Quinones, Ford, & Teachout,
1995; Van Iddekinge et al., 2009). Along with tenure-based measures,
these amount-based conceptualizations have been referred to as quan-
titative because the experience can be summarized using some kind of
numeric count (Tesluk & Jacobs, 1998). In addition to a purely quantita-
tive summary of work experience, the accumulation of work experience
concept also considers what the executive has actually done when en-
countering each work activity—that is, the nature of his/her experience
is captured by explicit attention to the role(s) assumed. This qualitative
approach to studying work experience, as it has been called by Tesluk
and Jacobs (1998), has also been employed previously when studying
work experience (e.g., De Pater, Van Vianen, Bechtoldt, & Klehe, 2009;
DeRue & Wellman, 2009; Dragoni et al., 2009; DuBois and McKee, 1994).
Here, we simultaneously incorporate qualitative and quantitative dimen-
sions of experience to more accurately and comprehensively characterize
executive experience. In doing so, we advance science by providing a
richer depiction of executive experience that accounts for the nature of
experience and the amount of experience attained during an executive’s
career.
Our investigation of the accumulation of work experience is greatly
enhanced by our unique data set: We use descriptive information for over
700 executives on the work activities in which they have been involved
over the course of their careers and their level(s) of role and responsi-
bility in each of these work activities. In addition, we use measures of
self-assessed personality, test scores of cognitive ability, and assessor rat-
ings of strategic thinking competency. We utilize these data to answer
the following practical questions, which are graphically represented in
Figure 1:
•To what extent do repeated exposures to the same work activity
with varying roles and levels of responsibility with each exposure
(i.e., accumulated work experience) enhance executives’ strategic
thinking competency?
•Among the personal characteristics considered here (i.e., cognitive
ability, Extraversion and Openness to Experience) and the accumu-
lation of work experience, which is the most powerful predictor of
strategic thinking competency?
•Are leaders with some particular trait(s) (i.e., cognitive ability, Ex-
traversion and Openness to Experience) more likely to achieve an
accumulation of work experience?
834 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
Figure 1: Hypothesized Model of the Antecedents and Consequence of
Executives’ Accumulated Work Experience.
Antecedents and Consequences of the Accumulation of Work Experience
Antecedents
The underlying logic driving our choice of antecedents is grounded
in the trait approach to leadership research which identifies specific char-
acteristics that distinguish leaders from nonleaders (cf., Kirkpatrick &
Locke, 1991). One illustrative trait-leadership study, which is particu-
larly relevant for our purposes given its emphasis on global executives,
is Leslie and VanVelsor (1996). They examined the differences between
successful executives and executives whose careers had stalled or been de-
railed and found that successful executives were intelligent and effective
problem solvers (a characteristic of those with high cognitive ability and
Openness to Experience), ambitious and able to consistently demonstrate
strong performance (an outgrowth of having high surgency, which is a
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 835
form of Extraversion), and adaptable (a characteristic of being Open to
Experience). We describe each of these antecedents in greater detail later.
Cognitive ability. Research shows that cognitive ability, that is, a per-
son’s general intelligence, is related to leader emergence and effectiveness
(e.g., Borman et al., 1993; Foti and Hauenstein, 2007; Judge et al., 2004).
This positive relationship is believed to exist because individuals high in
cognitive ability are able to acquire more job knowledge and acquire it
faster than others who are not as intelligent (cf., Schmidt & Hunter, 2004).
Further, intelligent individuals are better problem solvers; they figure out
difficult, abstract, and unstructured questions better and more quickly than
others and adapt to task changes better (Dilchert & Ones, 2009; LePine,
Colquitt, & Erez, 2000). Along with other scholars, we, therefore, predict
that intellectually gifted executives are more likely to be adept at craft-
ing business strategies to address their organization’s complex, dynamic
business challenges (Zaccaro, 2001).
In addition, individuals higher in cognitive ability gravitate toward
more complex jobs because there is a general tendency for individuals to
settle into jobs commensurate with their level of ability (Wilk, Desmarais,
& Sackett, 1995). Most notably, in their longitudinal study, Judge, Klinger,
and Simon (2010) found that as time passed, those with higher levels of
cognitive ability held increasingly more complex jobs. Accordingly, we
expect that executives who are high in cognitive ability will be increasingly
placed into and seek out more complex leadership roles (i.e., moving from
contributor, to manager, to lead strategist responsibilities) because they
are viewed as highly competent and tend to seek out increasing levels of
job challenge. For these reasons, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 1a: Executives’ cognitive ability will be positively related
to their strategic thinking competency.
Hypothesis 1b: Executives’ cognitive ability will be positively related
to their accumulation of work experience.
Personality. One of the most well-known and researched taxonomies
of personality is the five-factor model of personality, which is often re-
ferred to as the Big Five. The dimensions that comprise the Big Five in-
clude: Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Extraversion, and
Openness to Experience. Research consistently reveals that these dimen-
sions can be meaningfully grouped into two metacategories: (a) Agree-
ableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability (vs. Neuroticism)
form what is referred to as Factor α, and (b) Extraversion and Openness to
Experience comprise Factor β(Digman, 1997; Mount, Barrick, Scullen,
& Rounds, 2005). Most recently, it has been argued that the broad motive
of “Striving for Personal Growth” underlies Factor βpersonality dimen-
sions (Mount et al., 2005). Personal growth striving, otherwise referred
836 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
to as a motivation or readiness to learn, has emerged quite consistently
as a critical determinant in leadership development in general (e.g., Day,
Harrison, & Halpin, 2009; Spreitzer, McCall, & Mahoney, 1997) and in
building leadership talent via work experiences more specifically (e.g.,
McCall, Lombardo, & Morrison, 1988; VanVelsor & McCauley, 2004).
Because the motivation to learn appears central to leadership develop-
ment, we focus the current investigation on the Factor βdimensions of
personality, namely, Extraversion and Openness to Experience.
Openness to Experience encompasses traits such as being “imagina-
tive, cultured, curious, original, broad-minded, intelligent, and artistically
sensitive” (Barrick & Mount, 1991: p. 5), and one distinguishing quality
of those who are open to experience is their originality and creativity.
Empirical research demonstrates positive relations among Openness to
Experience, divergent thinking, and behavioral measures of creativity
(Feist, 1998; McCrae, 1987; McCrae & Costa, 1997). Creative problem
solving appears important to effective executive leadership, presumably
because it facilitates the development of innovative, yet feasible, busi-
ness strategies. In their study of executive success factors, Leslie and Van
Velsor (1996) found that creative problem solving and innovativeness dis-
tinguished successful executives from ones whose careers were stalled
or derailed. For these reasons, we expect executives’ Openness to Expe-
rience will be directly and positively related to their strategic thinking
competency.
In addition, as McCrae and John noted, individuals who are open
to experience have a higher “need for variety” (1992, p. 197), so these
individuals are attracted to novel job demands and thus more likely to seek
out a different role to play in a work activity that they have previously
encountered. In fact, previous research shows that those who possess high
levels of Openness to Experience are more motivated to learn (Hendricks
& Payne, 2007; Payne, Youngcourt, & Beaubien, 2007), are motivated to
participate in developmental activities, and engage in more developmental
experiences (Major, Turner, & Fletcher, 2006; Maurer, Lippstreu, & Judge,
2008). For these reasons, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 2a: Executives’ Openness to Experience will be positively
related to their strategic thinking competency.
Hypothesis 2b: Openness to Experience will be positively related to
their accumulation of work experience.
Extraversion is generally thought of as having two components: (a)
ambition, which may be observed as surgency, taking initiative, and being
impetuous, and (b) sociability, which entails being sociable, expressive,
and an exhibitionist (Hogan, 1986). Similar to those who are open to
experience, extraverted individuals are motivated to learn and develop their
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 837
capabilities, and empirical evidence shows that Extraversion is positively
associated with being learning oriented (Hendricks & Payne, 2007; Payne
et al., 2007), a motivation to engage in developmental activities, and actual
participation in developmental activities (Major et al., 2006). Further, as
shown in a recent meta-analysis by Fuller and Marler (2009), Extraversion
has the highest correlation with proactivity personality (ρ=0.42) among
the Big Five traits. Thus, extraverted individuals are more proactive, and
are more likely to take initiative to assume increasingly important and more
complex roles and responsibilities (Bateman & Crant, 1993; Howard &
Bray, 1994; Judge, Higgins, Thoresen, & Barrick, 1999). Therefore, we
expect that when extraverted leaders are exposed to the same work activity
multiple times, they will pursue a different level of involvement than they
held previously to maximize the developmental value from the experience.
Accordingly, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 3: Executives’ Extraversion will be positively related to
their accumulation of work experience.
A Key Outcome
Earlier, we defined strategic thinking competency as the composite
of the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to detect market opportuni-
ties, formulate a vision to capitalize on these opportunities, and engineer
feasible strategies to realize organizational and stakeholder value. This
form of competency is needed to address a specific type of organizational
problem—one that involves how best to achieve organizational growth and
ensure long-term viability. Scholars have noted the importance of leaders
being able to address ill-defined problems such as those involving the
strategic positioning of an organization and suggest work experiences can
shape the development of this competency (e.g., Mumford & Connelly,
1991; Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000).
The accumulation of work experience is efficacious in enhancing
strategic thinking competency because it provides developing leaders with
two elements that are instrumental to developing problem solving skills:
repetition and the introduction of novelty (Gagne & Medsker, 1996).
Facing similar work activities multiple times increases the likelihood of
repetition and mastery and, thus, potentially enabling leaders to solidify
their understanding of key business factors, contingencies, and alternative
courses of action, which ultimately helps them to develop mental frame-
works that ease their strategic decision making (Lord & Hall, 2005). Alter-
ing the leaders’ level of involvement when they next encounter a particular
work activity exposes them to a novel set of requirements. In grappling
with this novel opportunity, leaders often rely on previous knowledge
838 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
and experience and apply the strategic mental frameworks they formu-
lated earlier to current decisions (Mumford & Connelly, 1991). In turn,
they may receive feedback on the effectiveness of their decisions, which
facilitates leaders’ ability to further refine their strategic mental frame-
works for the next time they encounter a similar experience and helps
them see the full range and limits in applicability of their mental frame-
works (Lord & Hall, 2005). This process of creating mental frameworks,
choosing which ones to apply in subsequent situations, employing the
chosen frameworks, receiving feedback on one’s decisions, and refining
one’s mental frameworks results in more sophisticated problem solving
skills, of which strategic thinking competency is a part (Lord & Hall,
2005; Mumford et al., 2000). In short, the balance of redundant and novel
experiences, as found when leaders accumulate experience over time,
marks a developmentally rich opportunity to cultivate strategic thinking
competency in organizational leaders. For this reason, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 4: The accumulation of work experience will be positively
related to executives’ strategic thinking competency.
Method
Participants and Procedure
Our sample consists of 703 executives (N=703) who participated
in an assessment center at a large, international consulting company for
either developmental purposes (52%) or to aid their organization in making
selection decisions (45%; missing 3%). At the assessment center, sampled
executives provided detailed information about their work history and
individual characteristics and underwent a series of simulations to assess
their executive competencies. These activities were consistent across the
executives in our sample regardless of the reason each executive was
attending the assessment center. Executives in our sample worked in a
variety of industries such as sales, manufacturing, engineering, finance
and accounting, distribution, transportation, research and development,
procurement, and real estate/property management. They tended to be
White/Caucasian (94%), mid-aged (mean age =46.26, SD =5.68), highly
educated (91% with a 4-year college [46%] or more advanced degrees
[45%]), and male (83%). As seen in Table 1, the average work experience
was 24.60 years (SD =6.36), in which participants have an average
of 19.48 years (SD =5.39) of managerial tenure. These demographics
are consistent with other research studies that draw upon samples of
executives, with the major difference being that our sample is slightly
more experienced (Bunderson & Sutcliffe, 2002; Dilchert & Ones, 2008).
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 839
TABL E 1
Descriptive Statistics and Correlationsa
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3456789
1. Genderb.17 .37 1
2. Ethnicityc.06 .23 −.03 1
3. Years of experience 24.60 6.36 −.04 −.06 1
4. Times in a lead role 10.00 4.68 −.05 −.05 .06 1
5. Cognitive ability .00 .89 −.02 −.07 −.09 .02 1
6. Extraversion 5.99 .72 −.06 .00 −.02 .01 −.06 1
7. Openness to Experience 5.43 .60 −.08 .00 −.02 .02 .10 .70 1
8. Accumulated work experience 1.14 .66 −.13 .01 .09 .13 −.01 .26 .23 1
9. Strategic thinking competency 2.95 .44 −.12 .00 −.12 .07 .48 .10 .15 .16 1
an=703.
bGender (0 =male; 1 =female).
cEthnicity (0 =if White/Caucasian; 1 =otherwise).
The 95% confidence interval does not include zero if |r|is greater than .07, which is statistically significant at p=.05. The 99% confidence interval
does not include zero if |r|is greater than .10, which is statistically significant at p=.01.
840 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
Measures
Strategic thinking competency. Executives’ strategic thinking compe-
tency was assessed through five assessment center (AC) exercises, which
included an extensive background interview, a simulated cross-functional
task force team, a business management simulation, and a series of sim-
ulated meetings with various stakeholders (e.g., direct reports, boss). The
performance of each executive was evaluated by an assessor in each of
these exercises in terms of his/her ability to articulate a vision and shape
strategy, demonstrate sound business judgment, and attend to global busi-
ness issues. Some sample performance standards include (a) the extent to
which the executive demonstrated an in-depth and thorough understand-
ing of the simulated industry and implications for the simulated business
initiative, (b) the extent to which the executive leveraged existing sim-
ulated business opportunities, and (c) the extent to which the executive
fully capitalized on existing market research to identify ways to position
the simulated product offering. During these same exercises, assessors
also judged the participants’ interpersonal leadership skills and general
management competencies and were unaware of all the participating ex-
ecutives’ personality and cognitive ability scores when they provide their
assessment of every aspect of executive performance during these sim-
ulated exercises. The majority of the assessing consultants hold a PhD
in industrial-organizational psychology or a related field. Further, every
assessor went through a structured certification program that included
instruction, self-study, calibration exercises, shadowing and sign off pro-
cedures on each of the core activities including observation, evaluation,
role playing, integration, and report writing. Once certified, assessors are
regularly involved in calibration and update sessions to ensure ongoing
capabilities and standardization across assessors.
To verify the construct validity of these assessment ratings, we com-
pared a series of models via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using
LISREL 8.54 (Joreskog & Sorbom, 2002). Our hypothesized model was
a multitrait, multimethod model in which the competency dimensions
measured (i.e., strategic thinking, leadership, and general management)
were expected to be distinct from the methods used to assess these di-
mensions (i.e., interview, cross-functional task force, business simulation,
two simulated meetings).1We tested this hypothesis by specifying three
correlated competencies (i.e., the traits) and five correlated assessment
1The LISREL estimated correlation between leadership and general management is .33;
between strategic thinking and management is .77; and between strategic thinking and
leadership is .52. Five exercises are also positively correlated at between .14 and .28 (on
average .19).
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 841
exercises (i.e., the methods) and found that it fit the data well, given well-
established cut-offs: χ2=181.80 with df =89; RMSEA =0.028; SRMR
=0.021; CFI =0.99; NFI =0.99; TLI =0.99 (Browne & Cudeck, 1993;
Hu & Bentler, 1999; Kline, 2005). Further, we did not find any problem-
atic estimates (e.g., negative residual variances). Next, we compared this
model to other hierarchically nested alternatives (Widaman, 1985), such
as a model in which the methods exclusively explained the variance in the
ratings (Lance, 2008). As can be seen in Appendix A, the hypothesized
correlated-trait correlated-method (CTCM) model fit the data significantly
better than other alternative models using both the χ2and CFI difference
tests (Cheung & Rensvold, 2002). These results indicate that a significant
portion of these ratings are driven by the competency dimensions, thereby
providing construct validity evidence for our strategic thinking measure
(Rupp, Thornton, & Gibbons, 2008). Finally, we calculated internal con-
sistency reliability estimates across the assessment exercises measuring
strategic thinking competency and found strong reliability (coefficient
α=0.82).
Cognitive ability. To capture the breadth of this construct, we used
two measures of cognitive ability: the Wesman Personnel Classification
Test (WPCT; Wesman, 1965) to measure crystallized intelligence (e.g.,
verbal ability; verbal section of the WPCT) and the Watson-Glaser Crit-
ical Thinking Appraisal Form A (WGCTA; Watson & Glaser, 1980) to
assess fluid intelligence (e.g., reasoning; WGCTA total score). Both mea-
sures are well-established inventories that are widely used in managerial
assessment and have been found to be strongly correlated with other mea-
sures of cognitive ability (e.g., the Wonderlic Personnel Test, Wechsler
Adult Intelligence Scale; Watson & Glaser, 1980, Table 11; Wesman,
1965, Table 1). Reliability estimates (coefficient alpha) for both scales
have been reported to be acceptable at 0.84 and 0.78 for the Wesman and
Watson-Glaser tests, respectively. To arrive at an overall score, we first
standardized raw scores on both measures and then used the average of the
two standardized scores as a composite score. We estimated the reliability
estimate of the composite score (0.73) by adjusting the correlations of the
two cognitive ability measures (0.57) for test length (two times assuming
equal length for the two measures) using the Spearman–Brown prophecy
formula.
Extraversion and Openness to Experience. Extraversion and Open-
ness to Experience were measured on a five-point Likert scale (1 =
strongly disagree;5=strongly agree) using the Global Personality Inven-
tory (GPI; ePredix, 2001), and a scale score was computed as the average
of the relevant facet scores (the sums of the linearly transformed item
scores [1 =0, 2 =.25, 3 =.50, 4 =.75, 5 =1]). This particular person-
ality inventory was appropriate in the present research setting because the
842 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
GPI is a theoretically developed inventory with acceptable reliability and
criterion-related validity for use in managerial assessment (Schmit, Kihm,
& Robie, 2000). In addition, it has been shown to have a factor structure
similar to well established Big Five inventories (e.g., NEO-PI-R: Costa
& McCrae, 1992) and has been used in previous personality research
(Dilchert & Ones, 2008). Sample items include: “I find it easy to start up
a conversation with strangers” (Extraversion, 86 items, Cronbach’s α=
0.88) and “I quickly make links between causes and effects” (Openness
to Experience, 41 items, Cronbach’s α=0.75).
Accumulation of work experience. Executives responded to 48 items
of the Leadership Experience Inventory (LEI; VanKatwyk & Laczo, 2004),
an instrument designed to capture biographical data regarding a wide range
of challenging leadership-related experiences encountered over the course
of a manager’s career. This measure captures respondents’ experience in
specific work activities or situations, and we recognize that some of these
work activities may have been combined at one point in an executive’s
career to comprise his or her job or job assignment. We opted to focus on
the level of abstraction of work activity, as opposed to asking respondents
about their previous jobs or assignments, because work activities best
allow us to understand the nature of the actual work performed over an
executives’ career. All respondents were presented with the same 48 work
activity items and asked to think about the role they played in each of these
specific situations encountered over their managerial career. Three roles
were then defined, which assessed the executive’s level of involvement in
each work activity: (a) a “Contributor—participates in the experience by
providing support or assistance,” (b) “Management—manages the rele-
vant work effort or key relationships” and (c) “Lead strategist—sets the
overall direction and has the ultimate responsibility.” Next, respondents
were asked to indicate whether they played each role for each of the 48
specific work activities (sample work activity items: [a] “Involved in the
formulation of company policies and/or key operating strategies,” [b] “In-
volved in a project requiring the direct participation of parties both inside
and outside the organization [e.g., staff, users, outside suppliers, and out-
side professionals],” [c] “Involved in a project where failure would have
significant financial consequences to my organization,” [d] “Involved in
repositioning an organization’s product or service offering” and [e] “In-
volved in a major cost cutting effort by my organization”]). To ensure
consistency in how respondents completed the measure, respondents were
instructed to count the broadest role (i.e., lead strategist vs. manager) if
they held multiple roles at the same time during a particular work ac-
tivity. If they held multiple roles at different times during a particular
work activity, they were instructed to count each of the roles assumed.
If they had not played a particular role for a specific work activity, they
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 843
were instructed to indicate the response option for “no experience.” If
they had not encountered a specific work activity in any capacity, they
were directed to indicate the response option for “no experience” for all
three roles. Finally, in the instructions, respondents were given specific
examples to demonstrate how to count their experience to ensure clarity
of the instructions. Please note that this measure did not assess at what
point in an executive’s career these roles were held, how proximal in time
these roles were held, or how long each role was held.
Our descriptive analyses of these 48 work activities revealed that little
to no variation on 8 of the work activity items existed across the sampled
executives and thus we discarded these items (e.g., “involved in a cross-
functional project and/or team”). This lack of variance on these eight work
activity items was not surprising to us, given that this instrument is used
with managers at various career stages.2
To measure accumulated work experience, we developed a coding
scheme to capture the level of experience accumulation (range =3to0).
The coding scheme was used to code each of the 40 managerial work
activities and was as follows: 3 =held all three roles: lead strategist
(LS), manager (M) and contributor (C) roles; 2 =held any two roles
(e.g., held LS and M roles; held LS and C roles; held M and C roles);
1=held any one role (e.g., held LS role only; held M role only; held
C role only); 0 =held no roles. To arrive at an overall work experience
accumulation score, we averaged the codes across the 40 different work
activities, and higher scores on this measure represent greater levels of
experience accumulation. Scores resulting from the above coding scheme
approximated a symmetric distribution with a modest level of skewness
(0.41, SE =0.09).3
Validity evidence. The types of experiences assessed in the LEI
resulted from extensive development and validation studies, which in-
cluded conducting a content analysis of the personal histories of several
2We interpret this lack of variance as an indication that these eight work activities are
core to all middle manager and executive roles across various industries, organizations, and
geographies. These items may be more suitable for use among lower-level managers rather
than among executives.
3We developed an alternative coding scheme to investigate whether more heavily weight-
ing combinations of experience involving complex roles would affect our results. This
alternative scheme ranged 0 to 7 and was as follows: 7 =held LS, M, and C roles;6=held
LS and M roles;5=held LS and C roles;4=held M and C roles;3=held LS role only;2=
held M role only;1=held C role only;0=held no roles. Our focal and alternative coding
schemes showed no empirical distinction in that (a) their observed correlation is .97 and (b)
both the schemes have the same pattern of correlations with the other study variables and
only vary slightly in magnitude of relationships (mean absolute difference =.01). Because
an implicit weighting of more complex roles is not central to the accumulated experience
construct, as we have defined it here, we utilized the simpler classification coding scheme
in all analyses presented here.
844 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
hundred executives and the broader literature to identify key management
experiences, generating items to assess these various leadership experi-
ences, pilot testing the measure with 25 respondents via interview to verify
its ability to adequately capture the multifaceted nature of experience and
a follow-up study with 79 additional respondents to gauge the accuracy
and relevancy of the measure (VanKatwyk, 1996). Evidence from the pilot
studies indicated strong content validity for the measure with respondents
rating the inventory as accurate in assessing their leadership experience
(mean =3.01, SD =0.41 on a scale of 1 =very inaccurate to 4 =very
accurate) and over 90% of the open-ended comments citing its relevance
and ability to capture the full range of important managerial experiences
(VanKatwyk, 1996).
To validate the coding scheme used to assess work experience accu-
mulation, we surveyed 11 advanced doctoral students in Human Resource
Studies, during which we presented the construct definition and three dif-
ferent options for measuring work experience accumulation. Of the 11
invited to participate, 10 provided usable responses, and 8 (80%) selected
our coding scheme as the best way to operationalize the accumulation of
work experience construct, thus providing content (face) validity evidence
for our coding scheme.
Controls: quantitative measures of experience. Because we are inter-
ested in the impact of the accumulation of work experience, it is critical
that we control for purely quantitative measures of work experience. Of the
quantitative conceptualizations of work experience, the most predictive of
job performance are amount- and task-based measures (i.e., the amount
of times a particular task has been performed; Quinones et al., 1995). We,
therefore, created a measure that captures the number of times executives
have performed the lead strategist role by summing the frequency each
respondent held the lead strategist role across the 40 experiences assessed
by the LEI. We chose to focus on the lead strategist role because it is
most directly relevant to the development of strategic thinking competen-
cies, as compared to the other two roles for which we have data (Avery,
Tonidandel, Griffith, & Quinones, 2003; Bettin & Kennedy, 1990). More
important, the inclusion of this control allows us to rule out the possibility
that holding a lead strategist role more times (which may not necessarily
be coupled with holding less complex roles) drives the relationship be-
tween accumulated work experience and strategic competency thinking.
To better isolate the effect of the accumulation of work experience, we
controlled for the number of times the lead strategist role was held, even
though its inclusion represents a more stringent test because this control is
not entirely independent from the accumulated work experience measure.
Finally, we controlled for years of work experience as a tenure measure by
asking respondents, “How many years have you been in the workforce?”
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 845
In addition, we controlled for gender and ethnicity because of their
potential relationship to managerial work experiences (e.g., Ohlott, Rud-
erman, & McCauley, 1994). As requested by our anonymous reviewers,
we further considered two other control variables in a post hoc man-
ner: industry (sales, manufacturing, engineering, finance and accounting,
distribution, transportation, research and development, procurement, real
estate/property management, etc.) and assessment center purpose (devel-
opment vs. evaluation). Our results and conclusions with and without
these two control variables remained almost the same (R2=0.021).
Thus, we report results with the initial control variables to balance statis-
tical control validity and internal validity (Chen & Klimoski, 2003) and
to conserve space; results with these two additional control variables are
available upon request from the first or second author.
Analysis
We tested our hypotheses using a two-stage procedure. In the first
stage, we used regression to examine the nature of each specific hypoth-
esized relationship in an exploratory manner. Regression analysis was
done in a hierarchal manner by controlling for control variables in the
first step and entering study variables in subsequent steps. This was use-
ful to show the unique contribution (or incremental validity) of a newly
proposed measure, accumulation of work experience, above and beyond
cognitive ability, Extraversion, and Openness to the prediction of strategic
thinking. In the second stage, we used path modeling to test all of our
hypotheses as a model (Figure 1) simultaneously and in a confirmatory
manner and relied more heavily on these more sophisticated analyses
when interpreting our results. To control for the effects of gender, ethnic-
ity, and other quantitative forms of experience while maintaining degrees
of freedom in our path analyses, we used the residualization procedure
outlined in Cohen and Cohen (1983: pp. 487–518) and partialled out the
variance associated with the control variables from the study variables.
More specifically, we regressed all of our study variables on the control
variables and then used the covariance matrix of the residuals of the study
variables in the substantive analyses. Path modeling was conducted on
the residualized covariance matrix using maximum likelihood estimation
in LISREL 8.30. Finally, to estimate the relative importance of our pre-
dictors we used relative weight analysis (Johnson, 2000). Relative weight
analysis, similar to dominance analysis (Budescu, 1993), measures the
proportionate/relative contribution each predictor makes to the total vari-
ance accounted for, taking both direct and indirect effects into account.
The relative weight analysis is useful particularly when regression coef-
ficients as an index of relative importance cause interpretation problems
846 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
(e.g., multicollinearity; see Johnson & LeBreton, 2004 for more details).4
Furthermore, “the characteristic of importance weights summing to R2
greatly enhances the interpretability of these weights, making them much
easier to present to people who do not possess a great understanding of
statistics” (Johnson & LeBreton, 2004, p. 251).
Results
Table 1 provides descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations among
study variables. Extraversion (r=0.26; 95% CI =0.19, 0.33, p<0.01)
and Openness to Experience (r=0.23; 95% CI =0.16, 0.30, p<0.01)
are positively correlated with executives’ accumulated work experience,
but cognitive ability is orthogonal to accumulated experience (r=−0.01;
95% CI =−0.08, 0.06, ns). Accumulated work experience is positively
correlated with strategic thinking competency (r=0.16; 95% CI =0.09,
0.23, p<0.01). We also found that cognitive ability (r=0.48; 95% CI:
0.42, 0.54, p<0.01) and Openness (r=0.15; 95% CI: 0.08, 0.22, p<0.05)
are positively related to strategic thinking competency. Other quantitative
measures of experience did not demonstrate as strong of a relation: Times
as a lead strategist is positively, although not significantly, related to
strategic thinking competency (r=0.07; 95% CI =−0.00, 0.14, ns), and
years of experience is negatively related to strategic thinking competency
(r=−0.12; 95% CI =−0.19, −0.05, p<0.01). Although unexpected,
this finding is consistent with Dokko, Wilk, and Rothbard (2009) who
found that the number of months held in prior, similar jobs was negatively
related to current job performance. In compelling fashion, they argue
that increased tenure conveys beneficial and detrimental effects on job
performance, with one negative side effect of tenure involving increased
rigidity in one’s thinking.
Results From the Regression Analyses
We tested whether our individual difference characteristics (i.e., cog-
nitive ability, Openness to Experience, Extraversion) were significantly
related to the accumulation of work experience after controlling for gen-
der, ethnicity, and other measures of work experience. Consistent with the
correlational analysis results shown in Table 2, we found that cognitive
ability was not significantly related to executives’ work experience accu-
mulation (β=0.00, SE =0.037, ns) whereas executives’ Openness to
Experience and Extraversion were positively related to their accumulated
4We thank Action Editor Jeff Johnson for bringing this to our attention.
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 847
TABL E 2
The Relationship Between Individual Differences and Accumulated Work
Experiencea
Accumulated experience
Criterion Step 1 Step 2
Predictor βSE βSE
Genderb−.12∗∗ .037 −.10∗∗ .036
Ethnicityc.02 .037 .02 .036
Years of experience .08∗.037 .09∗.036
Times in a lead role .12∗∗ .037 .12∗∗ .036
Cognitive ability .00 .037
Extraversion .20∗∗ .051
Openness to Experience .08∗.051
Overall multiple R.197∗∗ .330∗∗
Overall R2.039∗∗ .109∗∗
Overall F (df1, df2) 7.02 (4,698) 12.13 (7,695)
R2.070∗∗
F (df1, df2) 18.25 (3, 695)
Note. Estimated standardized regression weights are reported; SE =standard error esti-
mates.
∗p<.05.
∗∗p<.01.
an=703.
bGender (0 =male;1=female).
cEthnicity (0 =if White/Caucasian;1=otherwise).
work experience (Openness β=0.08, SE =0.051, p=0.05; Extraversion
β=0.20, p<0.01).
Further, we tested whether executives’ cognitive ability, Openness to
Experience, and accumulated work experience were significantly related
to their strategic thinking competency (see Table 3).5We found that after
controlling other control and study variables, cognitive ability was strongly
and directly related to strategic thinking competency (β=0.48, SE =
0.033, p<0.01), Openness to Experience was not (β=0.00, SE =0.046,
ns), and accumulated work experience provided a significant, positive
unique effect on strategic thinking competency (β=0.13; SE =0.034, p
<0.01; see Table 3, Step 3).
5We conducted supplementary analyses to test the relationship of executives’ cogni-
tive ability, Openness to Experience, Extraversion, and accumulated work experience with
two additional criteria—executives’ leadership competency and general management com-
petency. To conserve space, these results are not presented here. Interested readers are
welcome to contact the first or second author to request these additional results.
848 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
TABL E 3
Regression Estimates Predicting Strategic Thinking Competencya
Strategic thinking
Criterion Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
Predictor βSE βSE βSE RW %RW
Genderb−.12∗∗ .037 −.10∗∗ .033 −.09∗∗ .033 .011 3.7%
Ethnicityc−.01 .037 .03 .033 .03 .032 .000 .2%
Years of experience −.13∗∗ .037 −.08∗.033 −.09∗∗ .033 .011 4.1%
Times in a lead role .07∗.037 .06∗.033 .05 .033 .003 1.2%
Cognitive ability .48∗∗ .033 .48∗∗ .033 .224 78.9%
Extraversion .12∗∗ .046 .09∗.046 .007 2.3%
Openness to Experience .01 .046 .00 .046 .007 2.6%
Accumulated work experience .13∗∗ .034 .020 7.0%
Overall multiple R.187∗∗ .518∗∗ .532∗∗
Overall R2.035∗∗ .268∗∗ .283∗∗ .283 100%
Overall F (df1, df2) 7.02 (4,698) 36.34 (7, 695) 34.17 (8, 694)
R2.233∗∗ .015∗∗
F (df1, df2) 73.74 (3, 695) 14.18 (1, 694)
Note. Estimated standardized regression weights are reported; SE =standard error estimates.
RW in Step 3 are relative weights which add up to overall R2; Relative weights in percentage form (%RW) that add up to 100% (Johnson, 2000).
∗p<.05.
∗∗p<.01.
an=703.
bGender (0 =male;1=female).
cEthnicity (0 =if White/Caucasian;1=otherwise).
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 849
Results From the Path Analyses
Next, we assessed the fit of our hypothesized model (Figure 1) to the
data using three indices: the chi-square goodness of fit statistic (χ2), the
comparative fit index (CFI), and the root mean square error of approxi-
mation (RMSEA). Our hypothesized model fit the data well: χ2=4.21
with df =1; RMSEA =0.068; SRMR =0.012; CFI =0.99; NFI =
0.99; TLI =0.95. To discern if another model fit our data better than
our hypothesized model, we tested a series of alternative models (Kline,
2005). Our logic in developing these models centered on the premise that
intellectually gifted and creative executives may not encounter multiple
roles for the same work activity because they are seen as very bright and
capable problem solvers who do not need repetition to develop their strate-
gic thinking competency. We, therefore, varied the existence of the direct
relationships between cognitive ability and Openness to Experience and
accumulated work experience and strategic thinking competency in our
alternative models. In Model A, in comparison to the hypothesized model,
we removed the direct path from cognitive ability to accumulated work
experience. In Model B, in comparison to the hypothesized model, we re-
moved two paths: (a) the direct path from cognitive ability to accumulated
work experience and (b) a path from Openness to Experience to accumu-
lated work experience. In Model C, in comparison to the hypothesized
model, we removed the direct path from cognitive ability to accumulated
work experience as we did in Model A and the path from Openness to
strategic thinking competency (which differs from Model B). Model A,
Model B, and the hypothesized model are nested within in each other, and
Model A, Model C, and the hypothesized model are nested within in each
other. Next, we used the chi-squared difference test to verify how critical
additional model paths were to overall model fit.
In comparing Model A and our hypothesized model, we found that
Model A fit the data better (χ2=0 with df =1, ns; see Table 4). Next,
we compared Model A to Model B and Model C and found that Models
B and C fit the data better (Model A vs. B: χ2=2.87 with df =1,
ns; Model A vs. C: χ2=3.49 with df =1, ns, see Table 4). Note that
Model B and C are not nested within each other, and thus the chi-square
difference test cannot be used to compare the two models. However, it was
clear that Model B fit the data somewhat better than Model C in terms of
other fit indices (e.g., RMSEA, SRMR) and the expected cross-validation
index (ECVI) useful for comparing nonnested models also showed that
Model B (0.044) fit the data a bit better than Model C (0.045). Thus,
Model B was retained as the best fitting model (Figure 2).
We interpreted the significance of the path coefficients as evidence of
support for our hypotheses. We predicted that executives’ cognitive ability
850 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
TABL E 4
Fit Statistics of Hypothesized and Alternative Structural Models
Alternative models χ2df RMSEA SRMR CFI NFI TLI χ 2df
1. Hypothesized model 4.212 1 .068 .012 .99 .99 .95
2. Alternative Model A 4.214 2 .040 .012 1.00 .99 .98 .00 1 (vs. 1)
3. Alternative Model B 7.08 3 .044 .017 .99 .99 .98 2.87 2 (vs. 1)
2.87 1 (vs. 2)
4. Alternative Model C 7.70 3 .047 .027 .99 .99 .98 3.49 2 (vs. 1)
3.49 1 (vs. 2)
Model A: Compared to the hypothesized model, a path from cognitive ability to accumulated experience is removed.
Model B: Compared to Model A, a path from Openness to accumulated experience is removed.
Model C: Compared to Model A, a path from Openness to strategic thinking is removed.
∗p<.05.
∗∗p<.00.
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 851
Figure 2: Confirmed Model Featuring the Antecedents and Consequences
of Executives’ Accumulated Work Experience.
Note. Values in parentheses are standard errors for path coefficients; ∗p<0.05 and
∗∗p<0.01.
(Hypothesis 1b), Openness to Experience (Hypothesis 2b), and Extraver-
sion (Hypothesis 3) would be positively related to the accumulation of
work experience. Our path model results do not confirm a relationship
between cognitive ability and accumulated work experience, and thus,
Hypothesis 1b is not supported. In addition, our best fitting path model
suggests no relationship exists between Openness to Experience and ac-
cumulated experience, and therefore, Hypothesis 2b is not confirmed.
Hypothesis 3 is supported, and the path model results indicate a signifi-
cant relationship between Extraversion and accumulated work experience
(γ=0.26; SE =0.036, p<0.01).
In addition, we expected that executives’ cognitive ability (Hypothesis
1a) and Openness to Experience (Hypothesis 2a) would be directly and
positively related to their strategic thinking competency. In our best fitting
model, cognitive ability (γ=0.47; SE =0.033, p<0.01) and Openness
852 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
(γ=0.06; SE =0.033, p<0.05) have a direct effect on strategic thinking
competency, thus providing support for Hypotheses 1a and 2a. More-
over, although not formally hypothesized, we found that Extraversion has
a small yet significant indirect effect on strategic thinking competency
through executives’ accumulated work experience (0.04, Sobel z=3.67,
p<0.01; Sobel, 1982).
In Hypothesis 4, we predicted that the accumulation of work experi-
ence would be positively related to executives’ strategic thinking compe-
tency. As shown in Figure 2, we found a significant relationship between
accumulated experience and strategic thinking competency (γ=0.14; SE
=0.033, p<0.01), which confirms Hypothesis 4. It is worth noting that
accumulated experience uniquely explains variance in strategic thinking
competency beyond that of cognitive ability, Openness to Experience, Ex-
traversion, years of experience, gender, ethnicity, and times in a lead role
across the sampled 40 different work activities.
We note that the results of the regression and path modeling results
differ slightly with respect to whether a relationship exists between Open-
ness to Experience and accumulated work experience or between Open-
ness and strategic thinking competency. Further, the correlation between
Extraversion and Openness to Experience is 0.70 (Table 1), which is not
unlike the work of other researchers who have studied the personality of
executives (see Appendix C of Dilchert & Ones, 2009, r=0.68, N=
4,150). This intercorrelation makes it difficult to discern the true nature
of the relationships of Openness of Experience and other study variables,
and so although we find support for Hypothesis 2a from the path analytic
results, we interpret this result cautiously.
Results From the Relative Weight Analyses
We also conducted relative weight analyses to show the relative im-
portance of accumulated work experience, cognitive ability, Openness
to Experience, and Extraversion in the prediction of strategic thinking
competency. Relative weights and relative weights in percentage form
(relative weight divided by the total R2and multiplied by 100 to repre-
sent the percentage of the total model R2associated with each predictor)
are reported in Step 3 of Table 3. Results showed that cognitive ability
accounted for 78.9% ([0.224/0.283] ×100) of the predictable variance in
strategic thinking competency, followed by accumulated work experience
(7.0%), Openness (2.6%), and Extraversion (2.3%). Unlike the regression
results, the relative importance of Openness to Experience was found to
be as high as that of Extraversion, presumably because the role of Open-
ness to Experience is somewhat masked due to its overlap with the other
predictors.
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 853
Discussion
Our study of the accumulation of work experience represents a signif-
icant advance in our knowledge about the relationships among individual
differences, work experience, and executive competencies, namely strate-
gic thinking. The accumulation of work experience is one of the most
sophisticated conceptualizations of work experience to date and centers
on the similar and reinforcing potential of work experience by simulta-
neously accounting for the number of times specific work activities have
been encountered and the level of responsibility associated with each en-
counter. Specifically, we were interested in addressing three questions
regarding the accumulation of work experience, each with significant im-
plications for practice. Below we discuss our findings in light of each of
these questions:
1. To what extent do repeated exposures to the same work activity
with varying roles and levels of responsibility with each exposure
(i.e., accumulated work experience) enhance executives’ strategic
thinking competency?
We found convincing evidence that the accumulation of work expe-
rience is related to executives’ ability to think strategically about their
organizations and business environments. And, this finding is robust—it
holds after controlling for the effects of gender, ethnicity, key individual
difference characteristics (i.e., cognitive ability, Extraversion, and Open-
ness), and other forms of work experience, particularly the number of times
executives have played the lead strategist role in various work activities,
which is a highly relevant and impactful form of work experience (Bettin
& Kennedy, 1990; Quinones et al., 1995). Moreover, we used a more
conservative measure of accumulated work experience and did not weight
more heavily those combinations of work experiences that included more
challenging roles (e.g., holding a lead strategist role and manager roles
was treated equal to holding a contributor role and a manager role). Even
with this more stringent test, we found a significant relationship between
the accumulation of work experience and competency in strategic think-
ing, suggesting that there is developmental value in reencountering the
same work activity with varying levels of responsibility. In addition, rela-
tive weight analyses also indicated that cognitive ability and accumulated
work experience are the two most important predictors for executives’
strategic thinking competency among other predictors examined.
One implication of this result may be that organizations wishing to
develop leadership talent need to provide multiple exposures to a range of
work activities and consciously vary the job incumbents’ level of respon-
sibility and leadership within each activity. For instance, an HR manager
854 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
who has served on a task force to contribute to the design a performance
management system would benefit from managing a task force similar
in nature and then ultimately leading such an effort. We suspect this ap-
proach offers an advantageous balance of redundancy and novelty, which
facilitates the development and refinement of leaders’ strategic mental
frameworks, thus enabling competent strategic thinking. Further, we sus-
pect that when leaders experience a sequence of increasingly complex
roles consistently across various work activities, the developmental po-
tential of experience is optimized and eventually maximized. This notion
of gradually exposing individuals to greater levels of challenge to en-
hance learning has been discussed by career development scholars (e.g.,
Morrison & Hock, 1986), educational scholars (e.g., Horne, 1983), and
cognitive psychologists (e.g., Sweller, 1988, 1994), and represents a po-
tentially novel area of inquiry that can inform the worlds of practice and
science on how to best time and sequence work experiences.
2. Among the personal characteristics considered here (i.e., cogni-
tive ability, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience) and the
accumulation of work experience, which is the most powerful pre-
dictor of strategic thinking competency?
We found that cognitive ability was clearly the strongest predictor of
strategic thinking competency, explaining approximately 22.4% of the
“possible to explain” variance. It is over three times as powerful as the
accumulation of work experience and almost eight times as powerful as
Openness to Experience in predicting strategic competency thinking. Rel-
ative weight analysis results more drastically showed the importance of
cognitive ability over the other predictors; cognitive ability accounted for
78.9% of the “predictable” variance in strategic thinking competency, fol-
lowed by accumulated work experience (7.0%), Openness (2.6%), and
Extraversion (2.3%). This clear result presumably exists because intel-
lectually gifted leaders are naturally predisposed to be effective learners
and problem solvers (Dilchert & Ones, 2009; Schmidt & Hunter, 2004).
Practically speaking, this result has important implications, particularly
given the shortage of capable leaders and the resulting temptation and/or
need to place untested leaders into positions for which they are not ready.
First, when selecting for a position that requires strategic thinking com-
petency and decision making, our results are clear—smart leaders, even
if they lack the experience, are more likely to be successful. Second,
accumulated work experience may help offset an executive’s limited cog-
nitive ability, particularly given their lack of overlap (r=−0.01). For
these executives, providing multiple exposures to the same work activities
and varying their level of involvement with each encounter may aid in
developing their strategic thinking competency.
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 855
Openness to Experience is another individual difference characteristic
that differentiates effective from ineffective strategic thinkers, although
to a much lesser extent than cognitive ability. Similar to intellectually
gifted leaders, leaders who are open to experience are original and cre-
ative (Feist, 1998; McCrae, 1987; McCrae & Costa, 1997), making them
well-suited for effectively crafting solutions to strategic challenges. In-
terestingly enough, our path model analysis revealed a null relationship
between leaders’ cognitive ability and their Openness to Experience and
accumulated work experience. It could be that the leaders in our sample
work for organizations that hold distinct philosophies about developing
leadership talent. Some organizations may view it as essential to ensure
that leaders who are intelligent and open to experience accumulate work
experiences. Others may “fast track” these types of leaders, having them
jump into more complex roles without initial, more basic exposures. It
would be valuable to know to what extent the opportunities to accumulate
experience are dependent upon leaders’ cognitive ability and Openness to
Experience and the different organizational philosophies about the value
of the accumulation of executive experience.
3. Are leaders with some particular trait(s) (i.e., cognitive ability,
Extraversion, and Openness to Experience) more likely to achieve
an accumulation of work experience?
Of the three individual characteristics we examined, we found that
executives’ Extraversion was positively related to their accumulated work
experience, explaining approximately 7% of the variance. This finding is
consistent with previous research that shows that extraverted individuals
are more proactive, motivated to learn and develop, and therefore, seek out
various developmental opportunities (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Hendricks
& Payne, 2007; Major et al., 2006; Payne et al., 2007). Other related per-
sonality traits that may explain the types of leaders who accumulate work
experiences are learning goal orientation—a trait shown in prior research
to be related to junior managers’ holding developmentally challenging
assignments (Dragoni et al., 2009)—and proactive personality, a quality
that has been shown to be strongly related to a motivation to learn, en-
gagement in developmental activities, and career success (e.g., Bateman
& Crant, 1993; Fuller & Marler, 2009; Major et al., 2006). Learning goal
orientation (ρ=0.29; Payne et al., 2007) and proactivity personality (ρ=
0.42; Fuller & Marler, 2009) are in fact positively related to Extraversion,
but we believe that these two traits may have incremental contribution
over Extraversion. One last aspect that may help explain the types of lead-
ers who accumulate experience is leaders’ core self-evaluation—that is,
the way in which individuals view themselves. Those with positive core
self-evaluations perceive less stress and cope with stress through problem
856 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
solving (Kammeyer-Mueller, Judge, & Scott, 2009), which can influence
leaders’ willingness to take on increasingly challenging responsibility and
may lead to more senior leaders viewing them as able to take on addi-
tional responsibility. Not surprising, given previous research on the trait
approach to leadership, the emerging research on leadership development
is documenting that certain types of people secure more developmentally
advantageous forms of work experiences. The next logical question cen-
ters on identifying which of the most relevant personality traits is the
strongest predictor and why.
Practical Considerations
In light of these findings, there are several practical considerations.
First, conscious attention to the roles developing leaders play in key work
activities may provide a basis for a useful career development strategy.
Systematically moving developing leaders through increasingly challeng-
ing roles, while exposing them to a particular work activity, is related to
leaders’ strategic thinking competency, particularly for those leaders who
may not be as cognitively gifted. Moreover, as organizations track the job
and experience histories of their high potential leaders, summarizing their
work experience according to the role(s) assumed can provide the basis
for aggregated measures of the depth of experience of the organization’s
leadership talent pool and indicate ways in which to deepen this pool’s
experience base.
Second, in times like these when leadership talent is in short supply,
the need to make sound selection decisions regarding leadership roles is
even more critical. In considering a range of candidates, applicants’ ac-
cumulated work experience and cognitive ability should be determined
and used jointly in making selection decisions, as these two criteria are
valid, nonredundant predictors of one important aspect of executive per-
formance. From a resum´
e, work experience accumulation may not be
readily apparent, so executives involved in these selection decisions may
need to actively uncover the extent to which candidates have encountered
similar and reinforcing work experiences during the interviewing process
or by collecting more detailed work experience histories, such as the most
notable experiences the candidates have encountered and the specific roles
they have played during these experiences.
Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research
Although this study advances research on executives’ work experi-
ence, there are a few study limitations that should be considered when
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 857
interpreting our findings. First, we implicitly assume that each role (con-
tributor, manager, or lead strategist) studied here produces its own unique
set of learning outcomes, with these outcomes culminating in higher levels
of strategic thinking competency. We have not directly assessed learning
in this study, and therefore, we cannot describe these more intermedi-
ate learning outcomes nor can we comment on the similarity of these
intermediate lessons across various roles. Future researchers may wish
to examine the learning progression experienced as developing leaders
progress through a series of more challenging roles. Although there may
be other valid approaches, one option would be a longitudinal design in
which leaders’ knowledge and skill outcomes are tracked as they move
through each role. In this case, the measurement timing and the selec-
tion of the sample are critical to avoid nonfocal sources of variance (e.g.,
confounding factors), and we would recommend focusing on a sample of
leaders facing similar work activities and whose progression through a
series of roles is comparable in terms of timing.
Although valid, our measure of accumulated work experience has a
few limitations. First, the measure of accumulated work experience does
not capture activities that may have been embedded in each work situation
and that may facilitate learning such as the extent and quality of feedback
received and the level of reflection on successes and failures. Second,
although all of the work activities that comprise the accumulated work ex-
perience measure are challenging, the relative difficulty may vary across
these activities and may be driven by the criticality of the work activity to
the business, and our measure does not capture this type of variance. Third,
this measure is retrospective and asks respondents to recall previous work
experiences, all of which they may not remember adequately. It is noted
that this recall error is not unique to our measure and all self-report mea-
sures are subject to recall errors, yet no compelling evidence exists as to
the severity of this type of error (Chan, 2009). Nevertheless, to minimize
the potential for measurement error, we only examined whether or not
(rather than how long) the participants experience a certain challenging
work activity in what role (i.e., contributor, manager, or lead strategist).
Finally, the limitations of our measure could very well have attenuated
the relationship of executives’ accumulated work experience and strate-
gic thinking competency. It seems possible that with less dependency on
respondents’ recall and a richer gauge of the difficulty and learning po-
tential of each work activity we would have found a stronger relationship
between accumulated work experience and strategic thinking competency.
Similarly, it is plausible that the relationship between cognitive ability and
strategic thinking competency may have been underestimated due to its
higher range restriction than those of other noncognitive predictors (Judge
et al., 2004; Schmidt, Shaffer, & Oh, 2008).
858 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
In our minds, these points highlight the complexity of the work ex-
perience construct—there are many different dimensions of experience,
each potentially meaningful, and it is difficult, and perhaps unrealistic,
to capture them all. Our measure of accumulated work experience can
certainly be expanded to address some of its current limitations. For in-
stance, respondents could be asked to rate the difficulty or duration of
each work activity in addition to indicating their depth of involvement as
we have done here. This expansion could serve future researchers well,
provided they first conceptualize theoretically which dimensions of ex-
perience should matter most given the focal outcomes. Average duration
across various work situations may be related to salary outcomes, for
instance, but not necessarily competency-based ones. And, given the po-
tential for respondent fatigue, it is necessary to carefully consider which
aspects of experience are most relevant to the chosen set of outcomes.
Third, our measure of strategic thinking competency is bounded to the
types of business situations to which our sampled executives responded.
Although these exercises are designed specifically to highlight pressing
business issues, we recognize that the exercises used are not necessarily
exhaustive of all the types of scenarios that executives encounter. For this
reason, it is important to note that our strategic thinking competency mea-
sure was derived from observing executives in simulated situations that
involved acting as a general manager in a large, global company with profit
and loss responsibility associated with sales and service accountabilities
for a defined geographic market and product/service segment. Thus, our
results most directly inform the type of strategy thinking competency de-
manded of general managers in a global context within a defined market
segment.
Finally, even though there are strengths to our design—large sample
size, use of multisource data—our cross-sectional design is limiting. We
are unable to draw causal conclusions or comment on how quickly exec-
utives develop strategic thinking competency, if these growth trajectories
vary by certain individual differences, and to what extent work experience
accumulation facilitates an upward trajectory. Certainly, longitudinal re-
search would provide tremendous insight into these questions.
Conclusion
This study makes an important contribution by examining the an-
tecedents and consequences of the accumulation of work experience.
We utilize a unique and rich data set to provide three insights regard-
ing leadership development via work experience: (a) the accumulation
of work experience is positively related to strategic thinking competency
in executives, (b) executives’ cognitive ability demonstrates the strongest
LISA DRAGONI ET AL. 859
relationship to their strategic thinking competency, and (c) extraverted
executives achieve higher levels of experience accumulation. Although
we are able to provide these answers, additional empirically validated
means for developing leadership talent through work experiences, such
as how to optimally time and sequence work activities, are desperately
needed. Moreover, the complexity of studying work experience and the
resources necessary to examine these issues competently requires greater
scientist–practitioner collaborations. We hope our work stimulates a more
common search to better understand how to cultivate leadership talent via
work experience.
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APPENDIX A
Multi-trait, Multi-method Analysis of Strategic Thinking Competency
Alternative models χ2df RMSEA SRMR CFI NFI TLI χ2df
1. Hypothesized model: CTCM model 181.80 89 .028 .021 .99 .99 .99
2. CT only model Does not converge
3. CM only model 397.91 109 .044 .026 .98 .97 .97 216.11∗∗ 20 (vs. 1)
4. CTUM model 265.72 99 .035 .026 .98 .98 .98 84.08∗∗ 10 (vs. 1)
5. UTCM model Does not converge
Note. C(U)T =correlated (uncorrelated) traits/competencies; C(U)M =correlated (uncorrelated) methods/exercises. χ2was computed against the
CTCM model.
∗p<0.05.
∗∗p<0.01.
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