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Managerial (In)attention to Competitive Threats
Author(s) -
McMullen Jeffery S.,
Shepherd Dean A.,
Patzelt Holger
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of management studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.398
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1467-6486
pISSN - 0022-2380
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2008.00799.x
Subject(s) - emerging markets , business , focus (optics) , regulatory focus theory , competitive advantage , industrial organization , marketing , public relations , economics , political science , management , task (project management) , physics , finance , optics
We integrate the Attention Based View of the firm and Regulatory Focus Theory to propose a model of managerial (in)attention that explains why appeals by middle managers for top managers to attend to specific threats of emerging rivals go unheeded. By acknowledging that different regulatory foci are elicited by different structural positions within the firm, we suggest that these differences in regulatory foci influence the allocation of attention to competitive intelligence warning of an emerging threat. We conclude by discussing how top managers might better evaluate whether threats of emerging rivals are worthy of deeper consideration.