This paper explores a series of relationships between top managers, strategic direction and financial perfor Mance. Building on previous studies, it was hypothesised that: (a) firms pursuing different strategies would be led by managers with different profiles; and, (b) firms which aligned the profiles of their top managers with the requirements of their strategies would outperfor M those that did not achieve such alignment. Further the importance of the strategy-manager alignment under various environmental and organisational constraints was also investigated. The results of the empirical examination of a sample of U.S. companies from three industries suggest that matching managers to strategy is a significant component of superior perfor Mance.
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