Typologies are an important way of organizing the complex cause-effect relationships that are key building blocks of the strategy and organization literatures. Here, I develop a novel theoretical perspective on causal core and periphery, which is based on how elements of a configuration are connected to outcomes. Using data on hightechnology firms, I empirically investigate configurations based on the Miles and Snow typology using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). My findings show how the theoretical perspective developed here allows for a detailed analysis of causal core, periphery, and asymmetry, shifting the focus to midrange theories of causal processes.

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Building Better Causal Theories: A Fuzzy Set Approach to Typologies in Organization Research

There is empirical evidence that established firms often have difficulty adapting to radical technological change. Although prior work in the evolutionary tradition emphasizes the inertial forces associated with the local nature of learning processes, little theoretical attention has been devoted in this tradition to understanding how managerial cognition affects the adaptive intelligence of organizations. Through an in-depth case study of the response of the Polaroid Corporation to the ongoing shift from analog to digital imaging, we expand upon this work by examining the relationship between managers' understanding of the world and the accumulation of organizational capabilities. The Polaroid story clearly illustrates the importance of managerial cognitive representations in directing search processes in a new learning environment, the evolutionary trajectory of organizational capabilities, and ultimately processes of organizational adaptation. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

https://faculty.tuck.dartmouth.edu/images/uploads/faculty/giovanni-gavetti/capabilities_cognition.pdf

Capabilities, cognition, and inertia: evidence from digital imaging

The study of cognition in organizations has burgeoned in recent years. Top-down information processing theory suggests that individuals create knowledge structures to help them process information and make decisions. While the benefits of employing such knowledge structures are widely noted, there is a growing concern that they can limit decision makers' abilities to understand their information environments and thus, compromise their decision making. This issue has captured the imagination of managerial and organizational cognition researchers. To date, their inquiry has been eclectic in focus and method. To order and advance this work, the author reviews extant research on the developmental origins and decision consequences of both the content and structure of knowledge structures at multiple levels of analysis. A host of research challenges are identified to help develop a better understanding of knowledge structure representation, development, and use in organizations.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2635252.pdf

Managerial and Organizational Cognition: Notes from a Trip Down Memory Lane

In this article I review studies of resistance to change and advocate new research based on a reconceptualization of individual responses to change as multidimensional attitudes. A challenging question for research and practice arises: How can we balance the organizational need to foster ambivalent attitudes toward change and the individual need to minimize the potentially debilitating effects of ambivalence? I conclude by highlighting the importance of examining the evolution of employee responses to change over time and the need to understand responses to change proposals that emerge from bottom-up. egalitarian change processes.

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Rethinking Resistance and Recognizing Ambivalence: A Multidimensional View of Attitudes Toward an Organizational Change

This article makes the case for the socioemotional wealth (SEW) approach as the potential dominant paradigm in the family business field. The authors argue that SEW is the most important differentiator of the family firm as a unique entity and, as such, helps explain why family firms behave distinctively. In doing so, the authors review the concept of SEW, its different dimensions, and its links with other theoretical approaches. The authors also address the issue of how to measure this construct and offer various alternatives for operationalizing it. Finally, they offer a set of topics that can be pursued in future studies using the SEW approach.

Socioemotional Wealth in Family Firms Theoretical Dimensions, Assessment Approaches, and Agenda for Future Research

Organizational renewal requires that a firm's top managers make timely adjustments in their mental models following significant changes in the environment. Our initial propositions about the difference between renewal and decline focused on whether similar organizations in similar contexts differ in their ability to recognize significant changes in their environments. Analysis of longitudinal data from a matched pair of U.S. railroads suggested, however, that renewal hinges not so much on noticing new conditions, but on being able to link environmental change to corporate strategy and to modify that linkage over time. In the successful company we studied organizational renewal is a continuous process of first and second order changes in cognitive maps.

/pdf/cognitive-change-strategic-action-and-organizational-renewal-1vzl5xgsh3.pdf

Cognitive change, strategic action, and organizational renewal

This study explores the effects of regulation and deregulation on strategic choice and performance in the US banking industry Drawing on literature from strategic management, industrial organization economics, and organization theory, we develop a framework which suggests that regulatory scope and regulatory incrementalism influence strategic choice and performance A path analytic model is used to empirically examine these influences The results suggest that deregulation has direct effects on firms' strategic choices and both direct and indirect effects on risk and return

Deregulation, strategic choice, risk and financial performance

Cognitive change, strategic action and organizational renewal

1. Managerial Decision Making and Strategic Management 2. Competitive Advantage 3. Managers and the Strategic Decision Making in Business Firms 4. Frameworks for the Analysis of Industry Environments 5. A Dynamic Model of Industry Structuring 6. Business Definition and Positioning 7. Business Strategy and Competitive Advantage 8. Business Strategy and Competitive Advantage in Emerging Industries and for Online Businesses 9. The Challenges of Mature Industry Environments and Competition in Manufacturing and Service Sectors 10. Corporate Strategy and Diversification 11. Organizational Structure and the Implementation of Strategy 12. The Management of Strategic Change

J. L. Stimpert

Papers

Cognitive change, strategic action, and organizational renewal

Deregulation, strategic choice, risk and financial performance

Cognitive change, strategic action and organizational renewal

Strategic Thinking: Today’s Business Imperative

7 organizational renewal cognitive change, strategic action, and