Absence-Neglect and the Origins of Great Strategies

Thomas C. Powell ()
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Thomas C. Powell: Said Business School, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1HP, United Kingdom

Strategy Science, 2018, vol. 3, issue 1, 306-312

Abstract: Great business strategies originate in a top management worldview that seeks to implement bold strategic change in the external world. This worldview generates confident strategic actions capable of producing extreme success. However, it also generates catastrophic failures and lower returns on average. This is because action-oriented managers pay abnormal attention to the observables of sense experience while neglecting the world of absence, a bias I refer to as absence-neglect. Absence-neglect is the cognitive tendency to notice presence more than absence—for example, movement more than stillness and noise more than silence. This paper examines the origins of absence-neglect and its consequences for strategy formation, firm performance, and social welfare. I argue that societies can reduce the economic and moral risks of “great” strategies by cultivating a more balanced discernment of presence and absence.

Keywords: managerial and organizational cognition; decision making; strategy formulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orstsc:v:3:y:2018:i:1:p:306-312

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