Coming to Consensus on Strategic Consensus: A Mediated Moderation Model of Consensus and Performance

Prior studies of strategic consensus and firm performance have yielded inconsistent results. The authors synthesize and account for these divergent findings using a mediated moderation model. Results based on a sample of manufacturing companies in Spain suggest a pattern of mediated moderation such that the relationship between competitive method consensus (i.e., means) and organizational performance, which is moderated by environmental dynamism, is mediated by consensus on objectives (i.e., goals or ends). These results provide an alternative explanation for prior inconsistencies in research results regarding the consensus-performance relationship and point to the need for a more complex conceptualization of the relationship among competitive method consensus, consensus on objectives, organizational performance, and the organization's surrounding environment.