Search results

Based on the theory of bounded rationality, the purpose of this paper is to explore the role played by top managerial management cognition in firms' efforts to obtain and maintain competitive advantage in a dynamic environment.

A research framework of the relations between environment changes, management cognition, strategic actions, organizational capability evolution and organizational performance is built. Data are collected through interviews, internal documents, and external documents and consequently a qualitative database is built to construct a causal map between environment, cognition, strategic actions, and organizational capability. Then by applying this causal map, a case study analysis of Vanward Group is carried out to explore its management cognition, strategic actions, and organizational capability in a dynamic environment.

The research propositions were tested and confirmed that top managerial management cognition is of bounded rationality and in dynamic environment it exerts direct and critical effect on their firms' strategic actions and organizational capability. Further discussion is extended to the roles played by institutional factors in organizational strategic decision process and the roles of top management in organizational dynamic capability.

The generalizability of this paper's conclusions to other firms is to be tested by large sample quantitative research.

The research confirms the bounded rationality perspective in strategic management, and explores in depth the formation, evolution, and functions of top management cognition in a dynamic environment. It also emphasizes the non‐economic factors related to the continuous acquisition and maintenance of competitive advantages in a dynamic environment.

The paper releases the economic assumptions underlying industrial structure theory and resource‐based views by emphasizing the effect of top management cognition on organizational strategic actions and organizational capabilities. It further enriches the institution‐based view by illustrating how institutional environment affects top management cognition and consequently affects the changes in organizational strategic actions and organizational capability. Thus, the institutional context for organizational strategic decision making is emphasized. The paper contributes to research in dynamic capability by emphasizing top management roles in developing dynamic capability.

Secchi and Cowley (2016, 2018) propose a Radical approach to Organizational Cognition (ROC) as a way of studying cognitive processes in organizations. What distinguishes ROC from the established research on Organizational Cognition is that it remains faithful to radical, anti-representationalist principles of contemporary cognitive science. However, it is imperative for proponents of ROC to legitimize their approach by considering how it differs from the established research approach of Distributed Cognition (DCog). DCog is a potential contender to ROC in that it not only counters classical approaches to cognition but also provides valuable insights into cognition in organizational settings.

The paper adopts a conceptual/theoretical approach that expands Secchi and Cowley's introduction of ROC.

The paper shows that DCog research presupposes a task-specification requirement, which entails that cognitive tasks are well-defined. Consequently, DCog research neglects cases of organizational becoming where tasks cannot be clearly demarcated for the or are well-known to the organization. This is the case with the introduction of novel tasks or technical devices. Moreover, the paper elaborates on ROC's 3M model by linking it with insights from the literature on organizational change. Thus, it explores how organizing can be explored as an emergent phenomenon that involves micro, meso and macro domain dynamics, which are shaped by synoptic and performative changes.

The present paper explores new grounds for ROC by not only expanding on its core model but also showing its potential for informing organizational theory and radical cognitive science research.

The contributions proposed in this paper are motivated by principles of incompatibility, and non‐equilibrium states, existing between the continuous growth in the level of environmental complexity and the insufficient cognitive capacity of the organization. From such a view, the purpose of this paper is to ask: what are the core competencies of the new industrial organization in the twenty‐first century?

First, the paper examines the characteristics and limitations of past and current industrial organizations; second, it contributes by extending their frontiers and by proposing technological, managerial and organizational core competencies of the new enterprise.

From such analyses, this paper introduces the features of customer‐centric systems (CCS) which represent new industrial organizations in the pursuit of high degrees of organizational cognition, intelligence and autonomy, and consequently, high degrees of agility and flexibility, in order to manage high levels of environmental complexity and uncertainty, to operate through intensive mass customization, and to provide customers with immersiveness.

For further research, this paper suggests the investigation of practical implementation of the features of the new enterprise of CCS. In such a direction, it recommends additional reading on the concept and design of computational organizational management networks.

This paper emphasizes that CCS are firm types which strategically organize their resources and competencies around customers' values and needs, in order to involve customers into their business. By involving customers into their task environments and business, CCS‐based firms have the chance to understand their clients' real needs and to produce the appropriate goods and services.

The uniqueness of this paper lies in its attempt to master, analyze and integrate technological, managerial and organizational perspectives of past and current manufacturing organizations, which contribute to illuminate features and to identify core competencies of future industrial firms, which are in the pursuit of innovation and sustainable competitive advantage in the twenty‐first century.

Bandwagon refers to the adoption of popular ideas, thoughts, or practices. Although the inter-organizational (macro) dynamics of the phenomenon have been widely studied, its intra-organizational (micro) aspects have received limited attention. The paper presents a theoretical framework and a model that address intra-organizational aspects of bandwagon drawing on distributed cognition, social relationships, and other elements of the organizational structure such as culture and defensive routines. The analysis of simulated data from the model suggests that the phenomenon is likely to decrease with highly informal culture, promotion of advice taking and giving, low levels of distrust, strong social ties, and minimal defensive routines.

This paper combines the literature on knowledge transfer and that on organizational behavior to analyze how perceived empowerment and perceived engagement affect knowledge transfer offices’ (KTOs’) performance, measured in terms of the number of license agreements.

The authors measured the cognitions which constitute perceived empowerment and perceived engagement through a survey sent to Italian KTOs’ professionals. The authors performed “fuzzy set qualitative analysis” to investigate if this cognition, together or in isolation, may influence KTOs’ management performance, measured by the number of license agreements.

The results highlight the role of individual cognitions in influencing KTOs’ performance. Furthermore, an important finding from the analysis of the main configurations is that the co-presence of perceived engagement and perceived empowerment leads to more license agreements only in the presence of specific individual cognitions. More precisely, the level of organizational citizenship behavior, the degree to which an individual influences results at work (degree of impact) and the value of a work goal (degree of meaning) are the cognitions which lead to a higher number of license agreements.

Despite the growing interest in the investigation of the determinants of KTOs’ performance, a relevant research gap still concerns the explanation of KTOs’ performance considering individual cognitions such as attitudes, norms, perceived behavioral control and intentions. This study looks at the combined effect of the individual cognition of perceived engagement and perceived empowerment on KTOs’ performances.

The aim of this article is to present a viewpoint from learning as individual and group cognition for the benefit of organization learning scholarship.

Conceptual viewpoint of the author.

The results demonstrate that perspective of intentionality is important for understanding how learning as cognition develops into organizational learning.

Organizations that recognize perspective as the agency by which learning as cognition develops organizational learning have a better opportunity to remain competitive.

This paper provides a basis to advance understanding on how perspective influences learning as cognition as a developmental process for organizational learning.

The work depicts an organizational learning schema, which reflects on the cognition structure of workplaces during the integration of AI-powered technologies.

This paper summarizes the most recent advances on organizational cognition from organizational studies. The article tries to capture how learning is impacted at the individual level and organization level, with incorporation of AI technologies.

The theoretical schema on organizational cognition could be studied and integrated to fill this gap and support an effective and smooth transition from electronic, computer-based industries (characteristics of the third industrial revolution) to AI powered enterprises.

It's one of the first works to discuss organization learning along with AI technologies.

The process of building dynamic capabilities remains understudied, although deliberate learning is posited to be the key to developing and maintaining dynamic capabilities in turbulent environments. Based on the case study of Kodak’s responses to the shift from traditional to digital technology in the imaging industry (1993-2011), the purpose of this paper is to examine the role of managerial cognition in building dynamic capabilities.

The paper employs case study and qualitative method approach.

The results reveal that, when facing environmental turbulence, deliberate learning is subject to routine disruptions through entrepreneurial activities, and these organizational routines and activities are determined by organizational schema. Organizational schema itself is updated as a result of managers’ ongoing interpretation of the organization’s fit with the environment. The study findings contribute to the organizational studies and management literature by highlighting the role of managerial cognition into the microfoundation of dynamic capabilities.

The results demonstrate managerial cognition, and organizational schema in particular, as a microfoundation of dynamic capability.

This article presents a cognitive framework to study dynamic/adaptive aspects of a collection of popular fit measures used in organisation research, in an attempt to highlight what there is to be gained.

This paper uses a distributed e-cognition (DEC) framework to examine the current organisational literature of fit measures.

This paper highlights that most measures have a rather narrow focus and do not address dynamic/adaptive aspects in complex social systems (e.g. organisations). To both provide a way to integrate fit measures and cover the cognition gap in this literature, this article highlights the need for a more sophisticated measure.

This paper provides a novel approach to examining organisational fit literature through a distributed (e)-cognitive framework.

This paper aims to attempt to develop an integrative theoretical framework that approaches global industrial marketing from a managerial cognition perspective.

Drawing from the managerial cognition research, business strategy research, and international business research, this paper develops a theoretical framework that is relevant to global industrial marketing.

Global industrial marketing research has much to gain from the managerial cognition literature. The framework developed in this article presents relevant managerial cognition variables, their individual and firm level antecedents, and desirable outcomes.

The framework presented in this paper provides strong theoretical foundation for further theory development in global industrial marketing research and managerial cognition research. However, given the conceptual nature of our research, empirical scrutiny and further conceptual and empirical research are required.

Given the growing importance of global industrial marketing, the authors hope that this article provides a theoretical foundation for future research. For practitioners, the framework provides a useful starting point for evaluating managerial cognition in their firms and effective usage of the managerial cognition concept.