Macquarie Business School, Macquarie U., Australia
The role of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) in driving firm exploration remains unexplored in the literature, despite their strategic position within the top management team. Drawing on upper echelons theory and integrating managerial discretion literature, this study examines how CMOs’ strategic, operational, and financial discretion influence firm exploration activities. We argue that these types of discretion have a positive effect on relative exploration, particularly under conditions of market and technological turbulence, where environmental dynamism amplifies the need for adaptive and innovative strategies. Using a sample of 2,417 firm-year observations of S&P 500 firms with CMO information, our findings contribute to the growing body of CMO research by highlighting CMOs’ role in fostering exploratory innovation while advancing innovation and environmental turbulence literature by contextualizing exploration within dynamic and uncertain environments.
