CEOs' Views on Strategy: A Survey

There are a number of important reasons why it is necessary to understand chief executive officers' relationships to their strategic management responsibilities. First, there is general agreement that strategic management should be a major responsibility of CEOs. Pearce and Robinson believe that the “principal duty of a CEO is often defined as that of giving long‐term direction to the firm” [2:13]. They also indicate that the CEO is responsible for the success of the business and, therefore, its strategy. As the strategic management process unfolds, Pearce and Robinson believe that the chief executive officer becomes the central catalyst as he works with the strategic management team composed of himself, product managers, and the heads of functional areas [2:12–13, 301].