Corporate Attributions as Strategic Illusions of Management Control

Salancik, Gerald R.; Meindl, James R.

doi:10.2307/2393176

Cited by 590 publications

(371 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Previous studies have found this self-serving bias to be most relevant to statements explaining firm performance-managers attribute positive organizational outcomes to internal causes and negative outcomes to external causes (Bettman and Weitz, 1983;Staw, McKechnie, and Puffer, 1983;Salancik and Meindl, 1984). However, more recent work suggests that these attribution patterns may represent biases in the sense-making process, not conscious attempts at impression management (Huff and Schwenk, 1990;Clapham and Schwenk, 1991).…”

Section: Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 97%

Environmental context, managerial cognition, and strategic action: an integrated view

Nadkarni

Barr

2008

Strategic Management Journal

525

466

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This study addresses an apparent disconnect between two views of strategic action: the ‘economic view,’ which contends that industry structure is the primary influence on strategic action, and the ‘cognitive view,’ which suggests that managerial cognition drives strategic action. We argue that this disconnect has created artificial boundaries between the two perspectives and has limited our ability to develop holistic explanations of strategic action. In response, we develop an integrated model that answers two questions: 1) Does industry context affect managerial cognition? 2) Does managerial cognition mediate the relationship between industry context and strategic responses to environmental changes? To examine these questions, we study the relationship between industry velocity, the structure of top management's cognitive representation of the environment, and the speed of response to environmental events. We find that industry velocity influences the structure of cognitive representations, which in turn influence the speed of response to environmental events. These results support our contention that both industry and cognition variables are critical in developing explanations of strategic actions. These results have implications for our understanding of the development of top managers' beliefs, the relationship between beliefs and action, and the nature of the complex relationship between industry context, managerial cognition, and strategic action. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 97%

Environmental context, managerial cognition, and strategic action: an integrated view

Nadkarni

Barr

2008

Strategic Management Journal

525

466

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Again, previous research provides an indication of how causal and argument submaps function in oganizations (see Bettman and Weitz, 1983;Fahey and Narayanan, 1986;Ford and Hegarty, 1984;Eden et al, 1979;Klein and Newman, 1980;Maruyama, 1982;Ramaprasad and Poon, 1985;Roos and Hall, 1980;Salancik and Meindl, 1984;Shrivastava and Lin, 1984). All of these studies are interested in tracing the causal linkages between givens, means, and ends illustrated in the Bougon et al (1977) study.…”

Section: Causal and Argument Submapsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Maps for Managers: Where Are We? Where Do We Go From Here?

Fiol

Huff

1992

J Management Studies

435

210

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Research on managerial cognition in general, and on cognitive mapping in particular, is receiving a great deal of attention in Europe and the US, but the work being done is currently disparate and loosely coupled. Furthermore, the development of maps as a decision aid has tended to focus on specific sub-areas of cognition. In this article we argue that the broad strategic concerns of managers require a portfolio of different kinds of cognitive maps. The interactions among these maps are as important as the functions of each one separately. We develop a framework for classifying cognitive maps and argue for the importance of managing multiple maps.

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“…Previous studies in attribution theory have found that firm leaders tend to attribute poor performance to external forces while attributing good performance to internal activities (Bowman, 1976;Salancik and Meindl, 1984; Weiner, Freize, Kukla, Reed, Rest, and Rosenbaum, 1972). This pattern of attribution does not hold in our study.…”

Section: Attribution Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%