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Problemistic search is a central part of behavioral strategy because it is a fundamental step in the decision process leading to strategic change. Despite the significant research efforts so far, there is a gap in our understanding of search. Unlike the theory of myopic search, most research so far has emphasized search initiated by performance relative to aspiration levels on goals that are too broad to justify directing search toward the form of strategic change selected for investigation. In the following, I outline the foundation of an extended theory of problemistic search in response to broad goals through either broad search, use of multiple goals, use of power, reliance on cognitive biases, or responses to environmental stimuli. Each of these processes, alone or in combination, can give more specific predictions of where firms search when encountering performance below aspiration levels on broad goals. Substantial progress in empirical research is needed, however, to distinguish which of these processes occur.

A firm will respond to performance feedback, i.e. a comparison of its current performance with the goals to which it aspires, by means of changes in its search activity. There is an emerging body of literature that studies how such behavioral responses are shaped by important decision-makers inside firms. The study focuses on the corporate board – one of the most influential decision-making groups in terms of strategy. More specifically, the study aims to study the moderation effect of the size, turnover and age diversity of the board.

The sample is based on the largest listed German automobile and manufacturing firms followed between the years 2001 and 2015. The sample is analyzed using fixed-effects panel data models.

The findings indicate that the age diversity of the corporate board and, partially, also the turnover of its members moderate firms' responsiveness to performance feedback. On the other hand, the size of the board does not seem to play a role. The study, therefore, supports the notion of taking into account the characteristics of the corporate board when analyzing strategic decision-making and points to areas for further research.

The study contributes to the literature by empirically testing the moderating effect of three characteristics of corporate boards that have not been largely tested in the literature to date.

This study aims to compare alternative search behaviors managers enact with regard to firm aspirations.

The behavioral theory of the firm predicts that poor performance relative to aspiration levels leads to search for ways to raise performance over aspirations. Most researchers have assumed search leads to risk‐taking or innovation. However, firms might search for ways to raise performance without incurring additional risk, such as reducing expenses. This paper compares the two models of search using data on research and development (R&D) spending.

The results generally support the cost cutting argument; R&D spending increases monotonically with performance relative to social aspirations.

These results suggest researchers need to consider searches that emphasize cost reduction, as well as searches that emphasize innovation.

Overall, this paper extends behavioral work on risk‐taking and R&D to provide a more complex view of the interactions between kinds of aspiration levels and both innovation and search behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and summarize a PhD thesis that contributes to the understanding of how unexpected events (deviations) are handled. It explores the reality of project manager's attempts to address loosely coupled components of tightly coupled projects from a projects‐as‐practice approach.

Research reported here is based upon a qualitative data gathering approach adopting an ethnographic research approach, gathering data from 12 weeks of participant observations, 59 interviews and studying supporting documentation with the offices under study. This approach is warranted by the projects‐as‐practice approach which puts emphasis on the situated actions.

Rather than reducing uncertainty, project management action through coping with deviations to expectations provides mechanisms that thrive on the uncertainty of the situation. Project managers can cope with unexpected deviations to plan in a logical and rigorous way that is currently poorly recognized as an official project management “skill”.

More space for action is created to solve the specific deviation by enhancing the seriousness of the deviation. The longer the project manager is able to emphasize the structures of a deviation, the more time the project manager has to find a suitable solution.

There are two main areas of conclusion that are given attention. First, uncertainty is inherent in projects which can be used when dealing with deviations in projects because while all deviations do not have great consequences, they follow the same basic pattern when managed. Project management in this sense becomes the management of deviations. Second, in terms of the theory of loosely coupled systems, a practice‐based analysis has been largely missing in the project management literature. The study reported upon investigates and explains this inner life of loose coupling mechanisms.

There is a preponderance of evidence in the established literature that declining firms have lower levels of organizational slack when compared with surviving firms. To further advance the current literature, the purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not organizational slack in its various forms differ in declining firms and in surviving firms. Additionally, this study examines whether there is a change in the extent of slack in the declining firms in the years immediately preceding bankruptcy filing.

–t-tests and panel regressions with random effects are performed.

Available slack, potential slack and total slack of bankrupts significantly differ from that of survivors in each year. However, recoverable slack levels do not differ in bankrupts and survivors. Available slack of bankrupts reduces significantly over the last five years before bankruptcy. Recoverable slack, potential slack and total slack conditions do not drastically deteriorate for the bankrupts over the last few years prior to bankruptcy.

Not confirming to prior evidences, the results of this study suggest that not every type of organizational slack is in a worse condition within a declining firm than in a surviving firm.

Among all the slack types, what differentiates bankrupts from survivors is the amount of available slack. Decreasing available slack within declining firms should forewarn managers of further likely deteriorations.

The results of this study questions the prevailing wisdom that financial resource levels, especially the levels of organizational slack is in a significantly lower level in declining firms than in surviving firms.

The purpose of this study is to examine what makes some firms, but not others, see a crisis as an opportunity to become entrepreneurial. Specifically, it examines how two key capabilities for durability—(unabsorbed) slack resources and external market networks—influence small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)’ “opportunity confidence”, a term recently coined to denote the subjective assessment of the extent to which a crisis is a good (bad) basis for entrepreneurial activities, such as the introduction of new products/services and new market entry.

Analysis of hand-collected survey data from 138 SMEs in Greece — a country hit hard by the 2008 economic crisis.

The findings reveal that an SME's number of network contacts has a positive effect on opportunity confidence, whereas firm slack resources lack a direct effect. It is, in fact, at low levels of firm slack resources that network returns are higher, especially for older firms. An extension to the main analysis also shows that opportunity confidence is linked to firm sales growth.

Understanding what makes some firms, but not others, see a crisis as an opportunity will help build an extensive and solid knowledge base and get ready for the next big (or small) crisis, which is inevitable to occur. Besides the grants and subsidies that policymakers often provide to SMEs in times of crisis, they may also need to consider organizing actions that support the extraversion and networking of SMEs—that can be done in a variety of ways due to the rise of teleworking and online collaboration platforms since the onset of the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper draws linkages between the “external enabler perspective” and the burgeoning resilience literature and illustrates empirically what makes some SMEs, but not others, view an economic crisis as a good basis for entrepreneurial activities—that is a manifestation of early-stage entrepreneurial behavior and a necessary condition before taking entrepreneurial action in times of crisis. By so doing, this study extends research on resilience that has explained the role of “capabilities for durability” as a means of surviving through a crisis by revealing that these capabilities do not necessarily translate into capabilities for renewal that will help firms to bounce forward in response to the crisis. It also points to the “dark side” of capabilities for durability and, by implication, of resilience.

Research finds that investors initially under-react to increases in R&D intensity. The phenomenon is commonly viewed as mispricing. We draw on behavioral theory of the firm (BTF) to propose an alternative explanation that increased R&D intensity is often indicative of problemistic search in firms. We empirically explore three contextual factors that may help discriminate between mispricing and problemistic search effects when capital markets frown on increased R&D intensity.

We use econometric methods to analyze longitudinal data on 4,561 US manufacturing firms.

We find that market reactions to R&D investments are consistent with the view that managers often engage in R&D-based search to correct anticipated problems. We show that increased R&D intensity is a stronger indicator of diminished expected future performance for firms with greater inertia, including larger firms and high-performing firms. However, greater R&D intensity is less indicative of problemistic search in slack-rich firms.

Whilst the BTF has been used extensively in management research, ours is one of the few studies which link the BTF to stock market phenomena.

The question of how the firm responds to performance feedback forms the backbone of the behavioral theory of the firm. Although the literature works with goals aspirations and additional determinants of a firm’s search activity – proximity to bankruptcy and slack resources – the majority of the empirical research assumes the firm’s response to performance feedback to be linear with a spline at the aspiration level. The purpose of this paper is to study possible curvilinear properties of performance feedback itself that may yield insight on the behavior of firms responding differently from the theory’s predictions.

The research uses data from exchange-listed German industrial firms followed from 2001 to 2015. It evaluates hypotheses using historical aspiration models with ROA as a measure of performance and with a spline specification. The fixed-effects panel data models serve as an estimation technique.

The research supports an inverted U-shape relationship between performance feedback and research and development (R&D) intensity for firms below their aspiration levels, and a U-shape relationship for firms above their aspiration levels.

The research is one of the first to directly study curvilinearity in performance feedback relationships. Arguably, there is no such a study directly focusing on a firm’s search as represented by R&D, despite the fact, that R&D forms the backbone of performance feedback research. Also, the population of German industrial firms is new in the literature.

The impact of executive characteristics on firm internationalization has already been extensively explored. However, relatively few studies have examined the critical role of chief executive officer (CEO) personality attributes, and especially CEO openness, in firm internationalization. This research aims to deepen the understanding of firm internationalization, by exploring whether and when CEO openness influences firm internationalization.

A sample of private high-tech listed firms in China is used, with data from 2004 to 2020.

Based on upper echelons theory, this study theorizes and finds that CEO openness will positively influence firm internationalization. Further, based on the behavioral theory of the firm, this study finds that the performance aspiration gap weakens the positive effect of CEO openness on firm internationalization, but also finds that the potential slack strengthens this effect.

First, the study reinterprets firm internationalization strategies from the perspective of CEO openness, a personality attribute; CEO openness is an important but so far rarely discussed topic in the field of international business. Second, for the first time, problemistic search and slack search into a research framework are introduced to explore the relationship between CEO characteristics and firm internationalization. This approach can further define the boundary conditions under which CEOs can project their values, preferences and personalities into the process of formulating and implementing a firm's internationalization strategy.