CEO Ambivalence and Responses to Strategic Issues

Abstract

International audienceWe examine how executives' ambivalent evaluation of a strategic issue relates to organizational actions taken in response. Ambivalence occurs when a decision maker evaluates an issue as simultaneously positive and negative, a state that has received scant attention in organizational research. We integrate findings in social psychology with the behavioral theory of the firm to suggest how executives' ambivalence prompts wider and more vigorous search for action responses and enables broader participation. Data from a two-wave survey of 104 German CEOs who evaluated the enlargement of the European Union in 2004 and reported their organizations' responses show that organizations whose CEOs evaluated the event as both positive and negative were more likely to take action when both evaluations were also strongly held. The reported actions were also of greater scope, novelty, and riskiness. The study contributes to research on organizational decision making by theorizing the role of top executives' ambivalence and by providing a first systematic test of how ambivalence affects responses to strategic issue

Cognitive Frames in Corporate Sustainability: Managerial Sensemaking with Paradoxical and Business Case Frames

“…Hence, resource constraints will affect such managers to a lesser degree. They will continue to settle univalently for either positive or negative evaluations, even with a low sense of control (Plambeck & Weber, 2009, 2010. We therefore suggest the following relationship between resource availability and managerial interpretation of sustainability issues (see the dotted curve in Figure 3):…”

“…With regard to the valence of an issue, previous work on strategic issue diagnosis tended to assume that decision-makers usually classify an issue as either positive or negative (Chattopadhyay, Glick, & Huber, 2001;Dutton 21 & Jackson, 1987;George, Chattopadhyay, Sitkin, & Barden, 2006;Jackson & Dutton, 1988;Sharma, 2000;Thomas et al, 1993). More recently, organizational scholars have devoted attention to ambivalent interpretations of strategic issues (Fong, 2006;Gilbert, 2006;Plambeck & Weber, 2009, 2010. While univalent interpretations denote an issue as being clearly positive or negative, ambivalent interpretations attach competing positive and negative evaluations to various aspects of an issue (Plambeck & Weber, 2009, 2010.…”

“…More recently, organizational scholars have devoted attention to ambivalent interpretations of strategic issues (Fong, 2006;Gilbert, 2006;Plambeck & Weber, 2009, 2010. While univalent interpretations denote an issue as being clearly positive or negative, ambivalent interpretations attach competing positive and negative evaluations to various aspects of an issue (Plambeck & Weber, 2009, 2010.…”

The coopetition paradox and tension in coopetition at multiple levels

“…Organizational scholars argue that emotional ambivalence is prevalent in the workplace but declare it to be an underexplored emotional state in organizations (e.g., Fong & Tiedens, 2002;Pratt & Doucet, 2000;Plambeck & Weber, 2009;Fong, 2006;Rothman, 2011). Unfortunately, to the best of our knowledge, it has gone totally unnoticed in interorganizational research on coopetition and paradoxical relationships.…”

Incorporating Technological Innovation and Environmental Strategy: An Integrated View of Cognition and Action

“…Although this research tried to construct a link between individual behavior and organizational action, it didn't explore how contingent factors influenced managers' cognition and correspondent actions. Recently, studies on CEO's capability disclosed that the ambidexterity capability of decision-makers in dealing with ambiguous issues with both positive and negative meanings would decide the scope of action, risks and innovativeness (Plambeck & Weber, 2009, 2010. Corporate environment strategy could be regarded as an ambiguous issue since there are still lots of enterprises that have not incorporated environment strategy as an important foundation for their organizations' sustained competitive advantage.…”