Political behavior does not (always) undermine strategic decision making: Theory and evidence
Introduction
“In strategic decision-making the major issue you've got to deal with is politics. For me, that's the single biggest thing you can get right or wrong.” (Senior Vice President, Global Healthcare Company).
Political behavior is a central construct in organizational theory (Baldridge, 1971; March, 1962; Pfeffer, 1981; Quinn, 1980; Vigoda-Gadot and Drory, 2016), and in the strategic decision-making literature it is widely accepted that political behavior often damages decision quality and undermines organizational performance (Bourgeois and Eisenhardt, 1988; Dayan et al., 2011; Dean and Sharfman, 1996; Elbanna, 2006, 2018; Walter et al., 2012). Strategic decision-making is an inherently political process (Child et al., 2010; Pettigrew, 1973), which, by definition, provokes conflicting viewpoints (Allison, 1971) and triggers power struggles (Pettigrew, 1973; Pfeffer, 1981), not least because organizations are formed of coalitions with competing interests (Cyert and March 1963; Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988; Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992; March, 1962) and because strategic decisions are highly consequential, complex, and judgmental in nature (Elbanna et al., 2017; Mintzberg et al., 1976). For all of these reasons most strategic decisions are subject to at least some degree of political behavior (Cyert and March 1963; Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988; Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992; March, 1962; Pettigrew, 1973, 1985) and not surprisingly, empirical evidence has shown that political behavior negatively impacts on decision effectiveness and organizational performance (e.g. Dean and Sharfman, 1996; Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988; Elbanna and Child, 2007).
Political behavior such as bargaining, forming alliances, lobbying and coopting (Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988) can provoke retaliatory interpersonal hostilities, risking missed opportunities and delayed responses. Political behavior can also result in information being distorted, withheld or manipulated (Dean and Sharfman, 1996); and the decision process can become insular and inward looking—neglecting important environmental considerations that might influence the viability of the decision at hand (Hickson et al., 1986).
Since political behavior is pervasive, and often damaging, there is a clear need for research to establish the boundary conditions under which TMTs, who have chief responsibility for strategic decision-making (cf. Floyd and Wooldridge, 2000), are able to countermand its negative effects, thereby safeguarding the quality of their decision processes. However, despite longstanding consensus on the importance of studying contextual contingency factors to understand better the contextual mechanisms that promote organizational effectiveness (e.g. Brouthers et al., 2000; Hart and Banbury, 1994; Johns, 2006, 2017; Rajagopalan et al., 1993), surprisingly few studies have examined moderating influences on the political behavior-decision quality relationship (Child et al., 2010). Hence, the boundary conditions of political behavior remain little understood.
To address this major shortfall, the present article draws on the upper echelons literature (Hambrick and Mason, 1984; Hambrick, 2007) to advance a contingent account of the factors that differentiate well-functioning and dysfunctional TMTs. To provide new theoretical insights into the mechanisms enabling TMTs to withstand political behavior, we employ a direct psychometric approach in the development and testing of our theoretical model. In doing so, we avoid the “black box” criticisms that have been levelled at prior TMT research for employing demographic variables as surrogates for the TMTs underlying psychological attributes (Hodgkinson and Sparrow, 2002; Lawrence, 1997; Markoczy, 1997; Pettigrew, 1992; Priem et al., 1999). We report findings from a field study utilizing multi-informant, multi-source data drawn from surveys and secondary databases. Our findings provide important theoretical insights into the boundary conditions of political behavior, by highlighting the centrality of the TMT's underlying psychological context, which moderates the extent to which potentially dysfunctional political behavior undermines decision quality. As well as advancing new theory, our findings provide salient insights for practice. Accordingly, we detail a series of concrete actions that can be readily implemented by executive teams seeking to enhance their prospects for minimizing the dangers outlined in this article. Specifically, we discuss recruiting leaders with a servant leadership style and collectivist orientation, as well as undertaking strategy away days and formal team interaction training—all of which develop a TMT's ability to withstand political behavior.
Executive team members engage in political behavior to influence the strategic agenda. When doing so, they are often strategic in their use of information, employing tactics such as behind the scenes bargaining, forming alliances, lobbying and coopting (Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988). Such behavior can, and frequently does, provoke retaliatory interpersonal conflict and impede information elaboration. However, not all TMTs react similarly when facing such potentially divisive behavior. Some teams are better equipped to prevent the effects of politics escalating to dysfunctional levels—such teams instead seek to integrate individual preferences, while taking steps to actively promote the information elaboration ultimately required to safeguard the quality of their decision processes, and ensure that their decisions are implemented in a timely fashion (Elbanna, 2018; Elbanna et al., 2017).
Political behavior manifests in the use of power and exercise of influence (Child et al., 2010), and is inevitable during strategic decision-making because organizations are formed of coalitions of individuals, all with competing interests (Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992). Conflicting preferences arise from differences in personal ambitions and interests, and from decision-makers’ differing functional or hierarchical positions within the organization (Allison, 1971). Furthermore, strategic decisions have high stakes—with significant financial and long-term implications for the organization—and as such, they provoke highly emotive responses among decision-makers. Strategic decisions are also inherently uncertain, ambiguous, novel, and ill-structured—prompting clashes between decision-makers as to the best course of action.
Overall, empirical evidence indicates political behavior has largely negative consequences, damaging organizational performance and undermining decision effectiveness (Dean and Sharfman, 1996; Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988; Elbanna and Child, 2007). However, there is an alternative perspective viewing politics as a force for good (Kane-Frieder et al., 2013), and an important mechanism for adapting to change in the external environment (Daft, 1983; Pfeffer, 1981). This perspective views political behavior as a means of resolving conflict, building relationships, restoring justice, and developing legitimacy (Hochwarter, 2012). Effective use of politics can also result in positive individual level outcomes including leadership effectiveness, individual performance, career success, and stress management (Kimura, 2015), all of which positively impact organizational and decision outcomes. Recent empirical evidence also shows positive politics can influence decision creativity and propitiousness (Elbanna et al., 2017), suggesting that political behavior might not be as damaging as many accounts suggest.
Prior reviews of strategic decision-making research identify four salient categories of contextual variables pertaining to the TMT, the external environment, the decision itself, and the firm (Rajagopalan et al., 1993; Shepherd and Rudd, 2014). While Elbanna and Child (2007) examined the moderating effects of environmental, decision and firm characteristics on the relationship between politics and decision success, this line of inquiry has not so far included TMT moderators. The TMT, or upper echelons perspective (Hambrick and Mason, 1984), represents a key internal context (Escribá-Esteve et al., 2008) since TMTs “make decisions and engage in behaviors that affect the health, wealth, and welfare of others—but they do so as flawed human beings.” (Hambrick, 2007: 341).
Overall in the strategic decision-making literature there is limited empirical work operationalizing TMT variables as moderators of the relationships between strategic decision process characteristics and outcomes (Shepherd and Rudd, 2014), and while the direct effects of TMT characteristics on decision processes and outcomes have been studied (e.g., Hough and ogilvie, 2005; Papadakis and Barwise, 2002; Papadakis et al., 1998), relatively little is known about how TMT characteristics moderate the effects of important decision processes such as political behavior. Indeed, Elbanna and Child (2007: 449) urge: “future research could consider additional moderating variables, such as top management characteristics.”
Strategy research in general requires greater psychological grounding (Hambrick and Crossland, 2018; Hodgkinson and Sparrow, 2002; Powell et al., 2011), and in particular, extant accounts of politics in strategic decision-making have tended to downplay the significance of the TMT's underlying psychological context. This represents a significant limitation, not least because political behavior, by definition, arises from fundamental differences of interpretation, judgment, decision making, and social cognition; and these differences ultimately drive the conduct of top teams (cf. Hodgkinson and Johnson, 1994; Pettigrew, 1992; Elbanna, 2006). Furthermore, the extent to which politics undermines decision quality is dependent upon whether such teams have the necessary psychological attributes to handle political behavior skillfully (Child et al., 2010; Silvester and Wyatt, 2018). Hence by not accounting for the contingent influence of TMT characteristics, current theory offers an incomplete portrayal of politics, over-simplifying the underlying intra-group cognitive and social psychological mechanisms in play. We thus contend that a focus on the team's psychological context is much needed in order to advance theory concerning why politics can, and often does, have highly damaging consequences for some teams, but less damaging consequences for other teams. To address this issue we adopt an upper echelons perspective (Hambrick, 2007; Hambrick and Mason, 1984) and in so doing, we examine the moderating effects of three TMT characteristics in particular on the relationship between politics and decision quality.
As outlined in Fig. 1, we theorize that the negative effects of political behavior are moderated on the basis of varying levels of cognitive consensus, power decentralization, and behavioral integration. We incorporate cognitive consensus into our model because shared beliefs and common understanding of strategic issues fosters intragroup trust and cohesion (Cannon-Bowers and Salas, 2001; Healey et al., 2015a; Kellermanns et al., 2005); implying that in teams characterized by higher levels of consensus, responses to political behavior will be less aggressive and hence less likely to undermine constructive debate and information elaboration. We incorporate power decentralization into our model because prior theory suggests that power asymmetries lessen psychological safety and trigger malignant threat responses (Edmondson et al., 2003). Furthermore, when politics arise in teams with power imbalances, there is a risk that the preferences of the powerful are forced through, regardless of their merits, and the valid preferences of the less powerful are discarded, reducing the likelihood of decision success (Dean and Sharfman, 1996). The third key moderator in the model outlined in Fig. 1, behavioral integration, is incorporated because it reflects the degree to which team members engage in mutual and collective interaction, or in essence, their degree of teamness (Carmeli and Haveli, 2009). We maintain that behaviorally integrated TMTs are better able to countermand the corrosive effects of political behavior because they enjoy harmonized social and task processes—which promote information elaboration and effective dispute resolution (Carmeli and Schaubroeck, 2006; Simsek et al., 2005).
In sum, our central claim is that cognitive consensus, power decentralization, and behavioral integration enable TMTs to stymie the more pernicious effects of political behavior. Taken together, these cognitive, structural, and behavioral factors distinguish well-functioning teams—characterized by high levels of intragroup trust, information elaboration and constructive debate—from dysfunctional teams.
We focus on explaining the implications of political behavior for decision quality, because the success or otherwise of individual strategic decisions ultimately determine whether firms adapt and prosper, or fail (Baum and Wally, 2003; Eisenhardt, 1989; Judge and Miller, 1991). Since strategic decisions have a major magnitude of impact on organizations, often entailing a significant financial outlay and are novel, uncertain, and ill-structured (Eisenhardt and Zbaracki 1992; Mintzberg et al., 1976; Shrivastava and Grant, 1985)—theory development in the strategic decision-making domain is vital. Examples of strategic decisions include mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring and entry into new markets (Dean and Sharfman, 1996; Papadakis et al., 1998).
We center our theory development on individual strategic decisions since prior research shows that firms do not have consistent decision processes; rather, the process adopted varies from one decision to another, even within the same firm (Hickson et al., 1986; Papadakis et al., 1998). Adopting individual strategic decisions as the unit of analysis enables us to isolate the role of the TMT in moderating the effects of politics on decision quality, and in doing so, begin to develop more micro level theories of political behavior. Furthermore, a decisional level of analysis provides a close link between political behavior during the strategic decision process and the direct outcomes of that process (Dean and Sharfman, 1996; Elbanna, 2006)—as opposed to examining the effects of politics on overall organizational performance, which can be problematic owing to causal ordering ambiguity (Forbes, 2007) and because performance is impacted on by an array of exogenous factors (Pearce et al., 1987).
Prior theory has posited both negative (e.g. Dean and Sharfman, 1996; Elbanna and Child, 2007; Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988) and positive (e.g. Elbanna, 2018; Elbanna et al., 2017; Kane-Frieder et al., 2013; Pfeffer, 1981) consequences of political behavior. We argue that this dissensus can be reconciled by advancing a theoretical account viewing the effects of political behavior on decision quality as being moderated by the TMT's underlying psychological context. Politics includes covert tactics such as use of power to defend interests, agenda control, off-line lobbying and cooptation, and the strategic use of information (Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988; Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992)—which in teams lacking psychological safety—can be highly provocative and fracture interpersonal relations. Consequently, ceteris paribus, the divisive nature of politics can trigger retaliatory interpersonal hostilities which undermine a TMT's ability to adequately elaborate information and mount major strategic changes on a timely basis.
Specifically, political behavior often distracts executives’ attention away from their key responsibilities, which causes delayed responses, and lost opportunities (Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988). Political behavior also impedes information elaboration (Cyert and March 1963; Pettigrew, 1973), and decisions taken on the basis of incomplete or inaccurate information are likely to result in suboptimal choices. When information is withheld by team members, attempts at accurately appraising environmental conditions are hindered, resulting in choices which might not be feasible given the prevailing environmental conditions (Hickson et al., 1986). Strategic decisions driven largely by political behavior are also likely to be motivated by the interests of one, or a small number of executives, rather than on the basis of what is optimal for the firm as a whole (Pettigrew, 1977; Pfeffer, 1981). Finally, political behavior imposes additional and unnecessary constraints on perfectly viable decision options (Nutt, 1993), since promising options may be discounted if they are not favorable to powerful individuals or alliances (Dean and Sharfman, 1996). The preceding arguments suggest the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1 Political behavior will be negatively related to decision quality.
Our core argument is that while political behavior is inevitable during strategic decision-making (Elbanna et al., 2017; Pettigrew, 1973), not all TMTs will react similarly (Child et al., 2010). Hence we focus our theory development on the TMT characteristics that can weaken the negative effects of politics on decision quality. We argue that cognitive consensus—agreement among TMT members concerning the goals, strategies and strengths of the firm—weakens the causal relation between political behavior and decision quality. TMTs with higher levels of cognitive consensus, in the face of political behavior, will be more trusting (Cannon-Bowers and Salas, 2001; Kellermanns et al., 2005) of the intentions of those engaging in politics owing to their high levels of psychological safety, and hence less retaliatory and aggressive in their responses. This is in contrast with members of cognitively diverse teams; who will feel threatened by the political actions of others and retaliate with interpersonal conflict and hostility, thereby paralyzing the decision process and jeopardizing decision quality.
Political behavior will naturally arise even in consensual TMTs—owing to the uncertain and high-stakes nature of strategic decision-making (Child et al., 2010; Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988; Pettigrew, 1973), and because organizations comprise divisions with competing interests and claims on scarce resources (Bourgeois, 1981; Cyert and March 1963; Elbanna, 2006). Hence, although individual members of consensual TMTs will use politics; high levels of agreement concerning the strategies, strengths and priorities of the firm means there is less need to use politics to coerce; instead, executives can direct political tactics toward facilitating successful decision implementation—for example as a means of obtaining necessary resources, unblocking systems of legitimate influence, and reducing inertia (Elbanna, 2018; Elbanna et al., 2017; Kimura, 2015).
Although political behavior usually risks undermining constructive debate as information gets withheld or distorted, this poses much less risk to decision quality in cognitively consensual TMTs; since there is less need for constructive debate and team maintenance in order to reconcile differences of opinion, due to high levels of shared understanding and commonly held beliefs (Daft and Lengel, 1986; Zenger and Lawrence, 1989; Smith et al., 1994). However, political behavior is much more inflammatory in cognitively diverse teams, and there is a heightened risk of restricted information flows resulting in decisions not being thoroughly debated, and divergent viewpoints being sidelined; the net effect being inadequate information elaboration and damaging retaliatory actions from marginalized team members who attempt to obstruct or sabotage the decision, which ultimately strengthens the negative relation between politics and decision quality.
Cognitively consensual TMTs have an underlying climate of psychological safety and trust built on shared beliefs (Daft and Lengel, 1986; Zenger and Lawrence, 1989). Thus cognitive consensus weakens the negative effects of politics on decision quality because it reduces the likelihood of TMT members retaliating against the political behavior of others, owing to the fact they are more trusting of the intentions of those engaging in politics. To conclude, attempts by executives within consensual TMTs to influence the strategic decision process through political behavior are less likely to trigger unproductive relational conflict, which would otherwise limit information elaboration and slow decision-making, risking missed opportunities and delayed responses (Dean and Sharfman, 1996; Elbanna, 2006). The preceding arguments suggest the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 2 Political behavior has a weaker, less negative relationship with decision quality when cognitive consensus is high, than when it is low.
Power decentralization is the extent to which CEOs distribute power and responsibility for strategic decision-making evenly among TMT members (Finkelstein, 1992; Finkelstein and Hambrick, 1996). We argue that the extent to which politics undermines decision quality will also vary according to the TMTs underlying power structures. TMTs who evenly share power and responsibility for strategic decision-making will react differently to political behavior—and be able to safeguard better information elaboration in the face of political behavior—relative to TMTs where power is concentrated in the hands of one, or only a small number of executives.
When political behavior occurs in TMTs with power imbalances, there is a risk that the preferences of the powerful are favored, regardless of their merits, and the perfectly valid and viable preferences of the less powerful are discarded, reducing the likelihood of decision success (Dean and Sharfman, 1996). Decentralization empowers top managers to prevent the personal preferences and biases of any one individual top manager or subgroup unduly influencing strategic choices, regardless of the political tactics employed, thereby weakening the negative causal relation between political behavior and decision quality.
The equitable distribution of power also has a motivational effect (Lanaj et al., 2013) which lessens the need for TMT members to use politics to enhance their power base or to further their own personal agendas, but rather galvanizes the team thereby increasing their propensity to use politics for the benefit of the wider collective—for example as a means of garnering support and building commitment to ensure successful implementation. Sharing power within the TMT also induces active participation, and greater communication and information exchange between TMT members (Cao et al., 2010), thus promoting information elaboration and reducing the likelihood of decision quality being undermined by individual TMT members using political tactics such as withholding or manipulating information (Cao et al., 2010; Thanos et al., 2017). Decentralized TMTs benefit from inclusive decision-making, emboldening TMT members to surface differing views and opinions safe in the knowledge that they are unlikely to face being ostracized (Carmeli and Schaubroeck, 2006; Edmondson et al., 2003), which ultimately attenuates the potentially negative effects of political behavior on decision quality.
When powerful executives within centralized TMTs engage in political acts such as withholding and manipulating information, responses from subordinated TMT members will be emotive and insurgent; that is, subordinated team members will actively resist change (West and Anderson, 1996) and compete for supremacy (Spears et al., 2001; Tajfel and Turner, 1986), actions which hamper information elaboration and escalate hostilities, ultimately threatening the prospects of success. Centralized TMTs are more likely to experience high levels of identity threat (Ashforth and Mael, 1989; Haslam, 2004; Tajfel et al., 1971; Turner et al., 1987) because the status of marginalized top managers as central members of the dominant coalition are imperiled. Such identity threats strengthen the damaging effects of political behavior, as individual team members seek to protect their self-interests by resisting decisions that threaten their psychological sense of self, heightening their personal identity concerns at the expense of the team.
In contrast, when responsibility for strategic decision-making is distributed evenly among upper echelons executives, it reinforces the shared identity of the TMT as a collective whole and team members pull together, actively and jointly shaping the future strategic direction of the firm. The preceding arguments suggest the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 3 Political behavior has a weaker, less negative relationship with decision quality when power decentralization is high, than when it is low.
TMT behavioral integration moderates the effects of political behavior on decision quality because such teams possess the requisite skills to handle political behavior constructively. Behaviorally integrated TMTs react differently to politics owing to their high levels of unity—members trust in one another's ability to use politics as an agent for circumventing ‘red tape’ and facilitating effective strategic change—while safeguarding against the risks of diminished information elaboration, which is a major risk factor associated with political behavior (Dean and Sharfman, 1996).
When politics arise in behaviorally integrated TMTs, such teams are able to prevent political behavior from spawning a downward spiral of ever-escalating relationship conflict that might threaten the team's effectiveness, and result in missed opportunities and/or delayed responses to impending threats. This is because behaviorally integrated TMTs have a collaborative culture (Hambrick, 1994), meaning that team members react tactfully to the political actions of others and channel divergence within the team to facilitate accurate appraisals of issues (Carmeli and Schaubroeck, 2006), while reducing their propensity to retaliate against politics through interpersonal conflict, hostility, and aggression. Hence, the net effect of high levels of behavioral integration is to weaken the damaging effects of political behavior on decision quality.
Behavioral integration captures the extent to which the TMT behaves as a true team, characterized by intense mutual and collaborative interaction (Hambrick, 1994), contrasting teams that exist simply as collections of “semiautonomous barons” (Hambrick, 2007: 336). Behavioral integration thus represents the wholeness of a TMT and its unity of effort (Lubatkin et al., 2006). By fostering intense cooperation, behavioral integration promotes high quality information exchange (Simsek et al., 2005), thus weakening the tendency for political behavior to undermine decision quality through diminished information elaboration. In contrast, behavioral disintegration exacerbates the problems associated with inadequate information elaboration, strengthening the risks of political behavior leading to biased choices made on the basis of incorrect or inadequate information. This is because when behavioral integration is absent, team members act autonomously and focus on their own area of the organization (Hambrick, 1998, 2007) limiting communication between team members to infrequent bilateral exchanges (Hambrick et al., 2001). Hence TMTs lacking behavioral integration are much more susceptible to the deleterious consequences of political behavior.
Behaviorally integrated TMTs are also better able to confront the high levels of uncertainty, risk and politics inherent in strategic decision-making, because they are more adept at managing team members' identity concerns, stemming from a stronger sense of shared identity throughout the team as a whole; that is, a strongly held superordinate team identity (Carmeli and Shteigman, 2010). Such a shared identity helps to lessen intragroup anxiety, and promotes effective intragroup functioning (Gaertner and Dovidio, 2000; Gaertner et al., 1994; Stone and Crisp, 2007). Further, since behaviorally integrated TMTs are characterized by frequent and intense social interaction, the social mind's natural tendency to categorize, differentiate, and discriminate (Allport, 1954) is dampened, thus reducing power asymmetries and associated behavioral dysfunctions within the group (Pettigrew, 1998). Hence, members of behaviorally integrated TMTs react more skillfully to the political actions of significant others, channeling dissent constructively so as to produce a diversity of arguments, while ensuring multiple viewpoints are considered and opposing views reconciled to create shared understandings (Carmeli and Schaubroeck, 2006)—the overall effect being to weaken the negative effects of politics on decision quality.
In sum, behavioral integration endows TMTs with a high degree of psychological safety, fostering free information exchange, decisive dispute resolution, and the creation of shared understandings of strategic issues (Lubatkin et al., 2006)—all of which serve to weaken the pernicious effects of political behavior on decision quality. These arguments suggest the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 4 Political behavior has a weaker, less negative relationship with decision quality when behavioral integration is high, than when it is low.
Section snippets
Sample and procedure
We sent separate surveys to two top managers in each of 236 UK based firms that formed our sample frame, of whom 117 (approximately 50%) returned useable data. The participants completed and returned the surveys independently, so as to minimize within firm cross-contamination. We used the Financial Access Made Easy (FAME1
Results
We use multiple moderated hierarchical regression analysis to test our hypotheses, by regressing the second informants' measures of decision quality onto blocks of the first informants’ predictor variables. Table 4 shows five nested models to isolate the additional variance explained when our moderators and interaction terms are each introduced into the regression equation. This approach facilitates comparison of the relative importance of TMT cognitive, structural, and behavioral contingencies
Discussion
The central aim of this article was to develop new theoretical insights into the psychological mechanisms enabling TMTs to countermand the negative effects of political behavior. Based on suggestions that extant strategic decision-making research has paid insufficient attention to the contingent influence of the TMT, and that this body of research is inadequately grounded in human psychology, we theorized that cognitive consensus, power decentralization, and behavioral integration are central
Conclusion
Most strategic decisions are ultimately political (cf. Johnson, 1987, 1988; Pettigrew, 1973, 1985; Pfeffer, 1981), and prior empirical research has tended to emphasize the damaging effects of political behavior on such decisions and attendant organizational outcomes (cf. Buchanan, 2008; Mintzberg, 1983; Silvester, 2008). However, strategic decision theory has not yet adequately explained how TMTs cope with the inevitable politics in play. In particular, prior to the study reported in this
Dr Neil Gareth Shepherd is a Lecturer in Strategy at Aston Business School. His broad research interests are centered around top management teams, strategic decision-making, and behavioral strategy. Specifically, his work is concerned with the application of theories of social and cognitive psychology to explain the behavior of top managers during strategic decision-making. Neil obtained his PhD from Aston University, prior to which he worked in mergers and acquisitions at KPMG London.
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Government policy changes and organizational goal setting: Extensions to the behavioral theory of the firm
2021, Journal of Business Research
Dr Neil Gareth Shepherd is a Lecturer in Strategy at Aston Business School. His broad research interests are centered around top management teams, strategic decision-making, and behavioral strategy. Specifically, his work is concerned with the application of theories of social and cognitive psychology to explain the behavior of top managers during strategic decision-making. Neil obtained his PhD from Aston University, prior to which he worked in mergers and acquisitions at KPMG London.
Professor Gerard P. Hodgkinson is Professor of Strategic Management and Behavioural Science (Alliance Manchester Business School) and the Vice Dean for Research (Faculty of Humanities), at the University of Manchester, UK. His research centers on the psychological foundations of strategic management and the nature and significance of scholarly management and organizational research, both for academia and the economy and society at large. The (co-)author of more than 100 articles and book chapters on these and related topics, his most recent work has been concerned with the implications of advances in the social neurosciences for the analysis of cognitive-affective processes in strategy making and the development and evaluation of techniques for aiding strategic decision making and organizational adaptation. Over an eight year period (1999-2006), he was the Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of Management. He is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Management (2016-2020) and serves on the Editorial Boards of the Academy of Management Review and Strategic Management Journal.
Dr Erik Mooi is Associate Professor of Marketing and Marketing department head at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His research interests are in strategy generally and inter-firm agreements and contracting specifically. He has published on the latter in e.g., the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, and the International Journal of Research in Marketing. He has also authored several leading textbooks, including "Market Research" and "A Concise Guide to Market Research", with Springer.
Professor Said Elbanna is Professor of Strategic Management at Qatar University. His research interests sit at the intersection of strategic decision-making, performance measurement and international management. He has published his research in Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies and Journal of World Business among others. Said obtained his PhD from the University of Birmingham.
Professor John M. Rudd is Head of the Marketing Group and a Professor of Marketing at Warwick Business School. His research explores strategic issues in marketing and sales, and managerial decision-making, and is published in academic journals such as the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, European Journal of Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management and the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management. Prior to an academic career John worked in senior commercial management roles.