Lee J. Zane

The Cognitive Perspective in Strategy: An Integrative Review

This article integrates the literature on strategic cognition (SC) within a framework that links the antecedents, structure, and process of SC with outcomes. Reviewing the literature from 1993 (two years prior to Walsh’s review of managerial and organizational cognition) until 2007, this article identifies three elements of SC structure (organizational identity, strategy frames, and organizational routines) and four SC processes (strategy formulation, strategy implementation, strategic change, and organizational learning). The literature portrays strategy formulation as a complex activity consisting of scanning, sensemaking, and decision making. Strategy implementation is composed of sensegiving, sensemaking, and issue selling. This review identifies five streams of empirical research with three well-developed themes (the antecedents and outcomes of strategy frames, determinants and consequences of strategy formulation, and cognitive construction of competitive/industry dynamics) and two emerging themes (the determinants and consequences of strategy implementation and the antecedents and outcomes of organizational identity). This review identifies several opportunities to extend the literature and outlines key methodological implications. Finally, the review addresses the need to build linkages to the ongoing theoretical conversations within strategic management literature.

Social networks and the acquisition of resources by technology-based new ventures

Our proposed model focuses on the relationship between specific components of an entrepreneurs social network and the acquisition of three key resources (human capital, financial capital, and alliances) needed for a technology-based new venture to reach the stage of commercialization. Specifically, we disaggregate the social network of founders into four specialized sub networks: academic, industry, finance, and family and highlight the benefits of each for resource acquisition. We then discuss strength of ties versus breadth of contacts in relation to the acquisition of resources. Social network theory is used to explain the model.

Inventing a future for strategic leadership: phenomenal variety and epistemic opportunities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer an epistemological vantage point for theory development in the case of strategic leadership, an emerging focus of scholarly attention in strategic management.Design/methodology/approach – The authors invoke Reschers epistemological platform for making the case, Rescher being one of the most influential philosophers in the USA.Findings – The analysis suggests that since strategic leadership differs from supervisory leadership, both on organizational reach and incorporation of external elements, defining the strategic leadership problem exclusively as a difference in context – what Weick referred to as a strategy of knowledge growth by extension – is likely to prove unproductive. Reschers platform can be put to use for specifying the two critical though inter‐related epistemological challenges in the beginning of the theory development project: the choice of concepts, and the type of relations among the concepts. These epistemological challenges may be refra...

Competitive Moves: The Influence of Industry Context and Individual Cognitive Factors

Abstract Businesses compete in markets with significant uncertainty and choose disparate competitive strategies. Some attack while others appear to wait. While real options logic has been used to explain market entry and exit decisions under uncertainty, few have tied this logic to the characteristics of ventures’ competitive moves. This paper discusses how ventures launch competitive moves, particularly the speed and intensity of action, under contrasting conditions of exogenous uncertainty and first-mover advantage. We argue that the speed and intensity with which entrepreneurs conduct competitive activities are contingent on both their perceptions of the environment and their level of certain cognitive biases. We conducted a two-by-two within-subjects design experiment to test our hypotheses with a sample consisting of service industry professionals.