Prior studies suggest high institutional ownership provides stable funding for firm managers supporting long-term innovation. However, we hypothesize that the level of holdings can also proxy for institutional attention. We address this question and find that institutional distraction negatively impacts board monitoring and advisory support for management, reducing R&D, patent filings, citations and creativity.Distraction is concentrated in (1) firms owned by institutions providing low attention before the shock and (2) industries facing low substitute monitoring through competition. Distraction also affects information flow in firms facing high labour mobility and high peer firm innovation (technology spillovers).