Leader humility and inter-firm collaboration: the moderating role of firm status and environmental uncertainty

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how CEO humility influences inter-firm collaboration (IFC) and the moderating roles of firm status (a firm's relative position in a social order) and environmental uncertainty on such an effect. Design/methodology/approach As the firms were nested in township clusters, the theoretical model was tested using hierarchical linear modeling to analyze a multisource and multilevel onsite survey from 254 firms in Chinese township clusters. CEO humility was measured using an 18-item scale reported by both the human resource managers and the financial managers. Besides using CEO self-reported ratings as the measurement of IFC, this study employed additional measurements to further validate the findings, including the IFC reported by the administrative managers and two alternative measures for IFC reported by both CEO and the administrative managers of each firm. Findings This study found that CEO humility is positively related to IFC (H1), and that this association is marginally more salient when firms have high status (H2) but less salient when firms face a high level of environmental uncertainty (H3). Practical implications Findings suggest that firms with humble CEOs may benefit from better inter-firm collaborative relationships, especially when firms have high status (i.e. possess many well-known trademarks), but not when they are in an uncertain environment. Originality/value Previous humility studies focused on the influence of leader humility on individual and team outcomes, but little attention has been paid to organizational outcomes. This research extends the implications of leader humility to inter-firm relationships. Moreover, this paper explores the boundary conditions of the influence of CEO humility, thus advancing the contextual understanding of leader humility.