Knowledge that Transforms

Recently, a number of researchers seeking to develop cognitive approaches for understanding processes associated with the development and implementation of competitive positioning strategies have drawn attention to the notion of ‘cognitive inertia’. Once established, there is a danger that actors may become overly dependent on their mental models of competitive space, to the extent that they fail to notice changes in the material conditions of their business environment, until these changes have become so widespread, or significant in other ways, that their organization's capacity for successful adaptation has been seriously undermined. While there have been several anecdotal accounts of cognitive inertia reported in the literature, and a number of researchers have explored processes of cognitive change in organizations more generally, to date there have been virtually no studies published which have investigated this phenomenon specifically within the domain of competitor assessment. This paper reports one such investigation, a longitudinal field study which explored the extent to which actors' mental models of competitive space in the UK residential estate agency (real estate) industry, an industry characterized by high volatility in recent years, remained stable or changed over time. An initial sample of 208 respondents from 58 firms completed detailed questionnaires at the onset of the recent recession in the UK property market. The questionnaires were designed to elicit the respondents' perceptions of their own organization and various competitors on a number of key dimensions. A sub‐sample of 114 respondents from 41 firms returned a further set of completed questionnaires, 12 to 18 months later, when the recession had become deeply established. The findings are entirely consistent with the cognitive inertia hypothesis. The results indicate that the respondents' individual and collective cognitions remained highly stable, despite a significant down‐turn in the property market from T1 to T2.

This study investigated relationships between middle managers’ formal position, their strategic influence and organizational performance. Among the 259 middle managers represented in the study, managers with formal positions in boundary–spanning sub–units reported higher levels of strategic influence activity than others. At the organizational level of analysis, the study found that firm performance was associated with more uniform levels of downward strategic influence, and more varied levels of upward influence among middle management cohorts. The findings suggest that middle managers’ strategic influence arises from their ability to mediate between internal and external selection environments. In addition, positive effects on organizational performance appear to depend on: (1) whether the overall pattern of upward influence is conducive to shifts in the network centrality of individual managers; and (2) whether the pattern of downward influence is consistent with an appropriate balance between the organization’s need for control and flexibility.

In this paper we present a critical analysis of current `green business' literature. We pay particular attention to the strongly evangelical language of the literature, and we consider whether such green evangelism is likely to represent an effective rhetoric strategy. We pursue this theme through exploring arguments for `environmental excellence', organizational `eco‐cultures', and for corporate environmental strategies. We suggest that current prescriptions for `organizational eco‐change' are often buttressed by evangelical rhetoric and are reliant on the assumption that organizations will voluntarily become greener. Given the centrality of voluntarism within this literature, we devote the latter part of the paper to considering its efficacy, and explore the deferred argument that organizational eco‐change will only come about through stronger state regulation.