Abstract

The focus of this paper is on the reality of strategic management in Tunisian companies. More specifically, it is suggested that the leader skills have an effect not only on the choice of the adoption of strategic management, but also on the contribution of strategic management to firm performance. It performs an empirical investigation into the moderating effect of leader skills on the relationship between strategic management and global performance. Data from representative survey of 276 Tunisian SMEs involved in the upgrading program revealed direct effect of managerial and entrepreneurial skills of the leader but no effect of technical skills and management sector on the strategic management. More the leader masters managerial and entrepreneurial skills, the more likely strategic management is to be adopted. It revealed also the absence of moderating effect of leader skills on the relationship between strategic management and global performance. Strategic management does not explain the variation of global performance based on leader skills. However, results show that only strategic management has a direct effect on the global performance, which means that only the strategies defined by strategic management lead to high performance whatever the leader skills.

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