Strategic renewal through knowledge creation: The impact of top management team time orientations and communications

This study examines a specific type of strategic change in organizations: strategic renewal. Strategic renewal is viewed as being anticipatory in nature, and focuses attention on changing strategic intent based upon perceptions of and communications about emerging circumstances which organizations face.; This study integrates theoretical perspectives from strategic management and information and communications theories. It builds a model which accounts for the ways in which top managers in organizations perceive emerging conditions and communicate amongst themselves to promote and agree upon new strategic alternatives. The effect on change of top managers' time perspectives and related communication patterns are examined, as are the constraining agenda effects of CEOs. The model also proposes that strategic change has positive effects on firm performance when top managers have differentiated effectively among strategic options, and have achieved integration of perspectives within the team.; The empirical analysis utilizes a sample of technology-based firms tracked longitudinally over a two year period. Results indicate that future-oriented top managers, and heterogeneity of time orientations among top managers, are important in the generation of strategic alternatives. Communication patterns, particularly that between more future-oriented managers and more present-oriented managers, are instrumental in promoting change. Strategic change contributes to positive performance when top managers differentiate and integrate at moderate levels. In sum the findings show promise for specific ways in which organizations and their CEOs may manage the change process.; Support is also found that strategic change may be viewed as either change in direction or change in intensity around a particular dimension. The study suggests types of change different from dichotomous models of change previously advanced. Change may be prospective in nature, and not solely reactive. A revised conceptualization of top management consensus emerges, arguing that consensus should be measured at a level of strategic thinking and should moderate the change-performance relationship. Articulable knowledge--that which is created and flows through communication processes in organizations--is particularly important in the development of strategy and the ability of firms to keep pace with changing environments.