Managerial Cognition: A Missing Link in Strategic Management Research

Abstract

This article explores the linkages between cognitive science and strategic management research. It begins by noting that Schendel and Hofer, in their classic work Strategic Management: A New View ofBusiness Policy and Planning, implicitly assumed a cognitive basis for much of the strategy-making process but did little to systematize a cognitive approach. Next, the article examines the foundations of modern cognitive science. Several areas of recent research that are particularly relevant to strategic thinking are reviewed. The article concludes with a call for a more explicit cognitive emphasis in strategic management. INTR03UCTIONSince Chandler wrote Strategy and Structure (1962), the variety of perspectives brought to bear upon stategy has proliferated. New ideas have entered the discipline from economics, decision theory, organization behaviour, and organization theory, as well as from more distant fields such as critical theory, biology, literary theory, agency theory, etc. This article aims to introduce cognitive science to strategy and to demonstrate how cognitive science can impart a powerful theoretical and empirical thrust to advance strategic management research.This discussion contains four parts. The first shows how managerial cognition was already a vital but neglected element in Schendel and Hofer's strategic management paradigm. The second is a brief review of the central principles of cognitive science, which provide a cornerstone theoretical subject that sets the stage for research into specific issues in managerial cognition. Next, three topics in managerial cognition relevant to strategic management are briefly addressed: categories, semantic networks, and inferences. Lastly, the article concludes by summing up the contributions which managerial cognition can make to strategic management.

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