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Strategic Cognition of Operations Executives
Author(s) -
Phadnis Shardul S.,
Sheffi Yossi,
Caplice Chris,
Singh Mahender
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
production and operations management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.279
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1937-5956
pISSN - 1059-1478
DOI - 10.1111/poms.12781
Subject(s) - typology , cognition , strategic thinking , strategic management , business , strategic planning , marketing , revenue , antecedent (behavioral psychology) , optimism , psychology , sociology , social psychology , finance , neuroscience , anthropology
The nature of operations executives’ strategic cognition, as the antecedent to their choices about operations strategy, remains underexplored in the literature. This mixed‐methods study examines executives’ thinking about supply chain strategy through the lens of managerial cognition. Our qualitative study at a pharmaceutical distributor, which examined 25 executives’ outlook on the future of the turbulent U.S. healthcare sector and their suggestions for adapting the company's supply chain strategy to that future, suggests that an executive's strategic cognition can be defined by its regulatory focus —whether the executive envisions the future environment in terms of opportunities or threats—and the level of optimism in regards to the envisioned future. We propose a typology that predicts the strategic choices of operations executives based on four types of cognition: pioneering , pushing , protective , and provocative . It describes whether an executive's strategic choices target traditional or novel sources of revenue, and if they seek to influence either the firm's structure and practices or its environment. Our empirical test of the typology using quantitative data collected in a survey of senior operations executives supports the study's propositions associating three of the four types of cognition with their respective preferred strategic choices.