TY - JOUR
T1 - Experience maketh the mind? Top management teams’ experiential background and cognitive search for adaptive solutions
AU - Sidhu, Jatinder S.
AU - Heyden, Mariano L. M.
AU - Volberda, Henk W.
AU - Van Den Bosch, Frans A. J.
PY - 2020/4
Y1 - 2020/4
N2 - The adaptive strategies of firms depend on executives’ forward-looking cognitive search. We examine how cognitive search is affected by the formative experiences of the executives making up a firm’s top management team (TMT). Drawing on research on adaptive search, cognition, and the upper echelons, we examine the extent to which educational level, diversity of functional expertise, and the length of industry tenure of TMT members will be associated with whether cognitive search centers more on proximal or on distal solutions. Analysis of 10 years of panel-data from US companies shows that whereas a TMT’s educational level does not seem to affect cognitive search, diversity of functional expertise does so, as predicted, and industry tenure does so in a manner we had not fully anticipated. Additional analysis also shows that whether cognitive search is proximal or distal is associated with whether firms enter into related or unrelated new product-markets. The article discusses the implications of these findings.
AB - The adaptive strategies of firms depend on executives’ forward-looking cognitive search. We examine how cognitive search is affected by the formative experiences of the executives making up a firm’s top management team (TMT). Drawing on research on adaptive search, cognition, and the upper echelons, we examine the extent to which educational level, diversity of functional expertise, and the length of industry tenure of TMT members will be associated with whether cognitive search centers more on proximal or on distal solutions. Analysis of 10 years of panel-data from US companies shows that whereas a TMT’s educational level does not seem to affect cognitive search, diversity of functional expertise does so, as predicted, and industry tenure does so in a manner we had not fully anticipated. Additional analysis also shows that whether cognitive search is proximal or distal is associated with whether firms enter into related or unrelated new product-markets. The article discusses the implications of these findings.
U2 - 10.1093/icc/dtz041
DO - 10.1093/icc/dtz041
M3 - Article
SP - 333
EP - 350
JO - Industrial and Corporate Change
JF - Industrial and Corporate Change
SN - 0960-6491
ER -