Time and Space in Strategy Discourse: Implications for Intertemporal Choice

Donal Crilly

Strategic Management Journal, 2017, vol. 38, issue 12, 2370-2389

Abstract: Research summary: When describing the future, executives draw analogies between time and space (“we are on the right path,” “the deadline is approaching”). These analogies shape how executives construe the future and influence attitudes to action with long‐term benefits but short‐term costs. Ego‐moving frames (“we are approaching the future”) prompt a focus on the present, whereas time‐moving frames (“the future is approaching”) underscore the advent of the future as inevitable. Ultimately, action that prioritizes long‐term returns depends both on how executives conceive of the future and whether they believe they can engender favorable outcomes. This balance between recognizing the inevitability of the future (time‐moving frame) and the capacity to shape outcomes (control beliefs) stands in contrast to the more agentic forms of discourse that are dominant in strategy. Managerial summary: Executives often prioritize maximizing immediate returns over investing to build a long‐term competitive advantage. How they think about the future offers one explanation for this short‐termism. This article distinguishes two ways of framing the future with implications for decision‐making. Are we approaching the future (the ego‐moving frame) or is it approaching us (the time‐moving frame)? As long as executives have confidence in their ability to achieve forecasted results, they focus on long‐term returns in their decision‐making when they recognize the advent of the future as inevitable (the time‐moving frame). In contrast, though executives use the ego‐moving frame to show that they are active agents, they weigh future returns less heavily when framing the future in this way. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2687

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:stratm:v:38:y:2017:i:12:p:2370-2389

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0143-2095

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Strategic Management Journal from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().