CEO Cognitive Flexibility, Information Search, and Organizational Ambidexterity

Abstract

Research summary: Though prior research highlights the organizational and cognitive challenges associated with achieving organizational ambidexterity, there has been comparatively less empirical attention focused on the cognitive characteristics that may differentiate top managers of firms that achieve ambidexterity. We build on emerging research and identify cognitive flexibility as a cognitive characteristic with particular relevance to the challenges associated with ambidexterity and suggest that it works through CEOs' information search activities. We find that cognitively flexible CEOs are more likely to engage in effortful and persistent information search activities and rely to a greater extent on outside sources of information. In turn, effortful and persistent information search activities are associated with higher levels of organizational ambidexterity. Our study pushes forward the research agenda on cognitive microfoundations of firm capabilities.Managerial summary: Ambidextrous organizations, or organizations that have the capability to pursue both incremental and discontinuous innovation simultaneously tend to enjoy more sustainable competitive advantages. However, the achievement of organizational ambidexterity poses organizational and managerial cognitive challenges. We focus our attention on the role of the CEOs in this process and suggest that CEO cognitive flexibility is particularly relevant for organizational ambidexterity. We suggest and find that the relationship between CEO cognitive flexibility and organizational ambidexterity is indirect, and highlight the role of CEO information search activities, in particular where and how intensely CEOs search for information, in this relationship. Our study reinforces the importance of human factors in the executive office for the development of firm dynamic capabilities and the implementation of an innovationbased strategy.

Factors affecting individual online rumor sharing behavior in the COVID-19 pandemic

“…We argue that the effects of peer communication and peer condition on online rumor sharing are mediated by fear of COVID-19. Following the suggestion of Kiss et al (2020) , two perspectives that support our arguments are as follows. On the one hand, according to the S–O-R framework, external stimuli (S) tend to affect the internal states of an organism (O), and then the internal states of the organism (O) are likely to induce the individuals' action responses (R) ( Cao & Sun, 2018 ; Mehrabian & Russell, 1974 ).…”