Looking forward instead of backward

Abstract

PurposeAccording to behavioral research, aspirations influence a firm's search – exploitive and explorative – for solutions that satisfy a firm's goals. Yet, such goal seeking behavior is adaptive to a firm's past experiences and not to a manager's expectations of its firm's future. A manager's expectations are often explained in terms of their confidence in future events. The purpose of this study is to address the following research question: how does a manager's confidence influence its expectations of a firm's future performance and goals; and how do these future expectations influence a firm's exploitive/explorative search?Design/methodology/approachIn drawing on cognition and legitimacy research, a conceptual model was developed to explain the antecedents and outcomes of a firm's “forward-looking” aspirations. The antecedents to a firm's forward-looking aspirations are attributed to a manager's overconfidence – anchoring, confirmation and availability – biases. In using strategic legitimacy explanations, these biases introduce distinct types of forward-looking (exploitive/explorative) search that legitimize/de-legitimize a manager's forward-looking aspirations.FindingsA key finding of this study is that it introduces a strategic decision-making process in which a firm's exploitive/ explorative search is adaptive toward its forward-looking aspirations.Research limitations/implicationsThis forward-looking strategic decision-making process offers research implications to understand how a firm's future goals and expectations can offer new understandings of their past experiences and traditions and explains how a manager's overconfidence biases can influence the assessment of a firm's social aspirational groups.Practical implicationsIn addition, this study also offers practical implications in which illustrative examples are used to explain this study's forward-looking strategic decision-making process.Originality/valueA distinct contribution of this study is that it introduces a forward-looking orientation that has not been previously examined the backward focus of behavioral research.

Tomorrow is already here: Exploring how corporate foresight can contribute to ambidexterity

“…In‐depth case studies could provide this (see also Bodwell & Chermack, 2010). This is particularly problematic because organizations can only become ambidextrous following the result of managerial decisions based on a strategic choice between different ambidexterity‐strategies (Ng, 2019). Thus, the research gap is to understand how the process of using corporate foresight in achieving ambidexterity is taking place and how that could be managed.…”

Productive or non-productive? Negative performance feedback and firms' cost behaviors

“…Of these behaviors, innovation is given a higher priority in firms' search process. According to the theoretical model targeting the antecedents and outcomes of performance feedback established by Ng (2020), negative performance feedback can stimulate firms' exploitative and exploratory innovative behaviors. Based on the firm's motivation to undertake search behaviors, DasGupta and Mishra (2023) found that positive performance feedback positively impacts firm innovative search behaviors, whereas negative performance feedback positively influences its problem-driven search behaviors.…”