Cognition Within and Between Organizations: Five Key Questions

Abstract

This special issue of Organization Science taps into the burgeoning work on managerial and organizational cognition. In the last 15 years, there has been a decided “cognitive turn” within organizational studies as researchers increasingly explore the relationships among mind, management, and organization. The early groundwork established by the Carnegie School of organizational theory, the success of modern cognitive science, and the recent diffusion of social constructionism within organizational studies have all contributed to this growing interest in cognitive research. Researchers are now exploring the cognitive underpinnings of such diverse organizational phenomena as job attitudes, performance appraisals, managerial decision making, environmental sensemaking, organizational learning, and interorganizational belief systems. Few areas of contemporary organizational science remain untouched by a cognitive agenda. In this short paper, we introduce the special issue by discussing the issue's focus and highlighting several key questions that constantly recur within the cognitivist agenda illustrated by these papers.

Incorporating Technological Innovation and Environmental Strategy: An Integrated View of Cognition and Action

“…The recent initiatives on (2010) put forwarded that more research in strategy and organization should be taken to explore the micro foundations of organizational performance under dynamic environmental conditions. This is consistent with the suggestion from Meindl (1994) that the most important research in future must establish the links among cognition, behavior and organizational performance.…”

A Model of Collective Interpretation

“…Since this complaint, organizational scholars have been paying increasing attention to collective interpretation in organizations, where "collective" denotes a group of agents who are highly interdependent and interact frequently in their quest for meaning (Weick and Roberts 1993). 2 This field has been reviewed elsewhere (Walsh 1995, Meindl et al 1996, Drazin et al 1999), and we do not replicate such efforts here. We will, however, point out a few developments that are germane to our agenda.…”

TMT Cognition, First Mover Advantages and Firm Entreprenuerial Performance: A Review of Literature

“…The issues on the importance of the managers and the organisation in making sense of situations and events. Sense making involves the intepretation, frames, schemas and assumptions of situations or events (Meindl, Stubbart, & Porac, 1994).…”