The Plural of Goal: Learning in a World of Ambiguity

References

• Aghion P , Stein J (2008) Growth vs. margins: Destabilizing consequences of giving the stock market what it wants. J. Finance 63(3):1025–1058.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Allison G (1971) Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis , 1st ed. (Little Brown, Boston).Google Scholar
• Argote L (2013) Organizational Learning: Creating, Retaining and Transferring Knowledge , 2nd ed. (Springer, New York).Crossref, Google Scholar
• Argote L , Greve HR (2007) A behavioral theory of the firm—40 years and counting: Introduction and impact. Organ. Sci. 18:337–349.Link, Google Scholar
• Argote L , Miron-Spektor E (2011) Organizational learning: From experience to knowledge. Organ. Sci. 22(5):1123–1137.Link, Google Scholar
• Audia PG , Brion S (2007) Reluctant to change: Self-enhancing responses to diverging performance measures. Organ. Behav. Human Decision Processes 102(2):255–269.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Audia PG , Brion S , Greve HR (2015) Self-assessment, self-enhancement, and the choice of comparison organizations for evaluating organizational performance. Gavetti G, Ocasio W, eds. Advances in Strategic Management: Cognition and Strategy (Emerald, Bingley, UK), 89–118.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Battilana J , Besharov M , Mitzinneck B (2017) On hybrids and hybrid organizing: A review and roadmap for future research. Greenwood R, Oliver C, Lawrence TB, Meyer RE, eds. The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Institutionalism (Sage Publications, London), 128–162.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Baum JAC , Dahlin KB (2007) Aspiration performance and railroads’ patterns of learning from train wrecks and crashes. Organ. Sci. 18(3):368–385.Link, Google Scholar
• Baum JAC , Rowley TJ , Shipilov AV , Chuang YT (2005) Dancing with strangers: Aspiration performance and the search for underwriting syndicate partners. Admin. Sci. Quart. 50(4):536–575.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Bourgeois LJ (1981) On the measurement of organizational slack. Acad. Management Rev. 6(1):29–39.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Boyle E , Shapira Z (2012) The liability of leading: Battling aspirations and survival goals in the Jeopardy! Tournament of champions. Organ. Sci. 23(4):1100–1113.Link, Google Scholar
• Bromiley P , Harris JD (2014) A comparison of alternative measures of organizational aspirations. Strategic Management J. 35(3):338–357.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Cappellaro G , Compagni A , Vaara E (2020) Maintaining strategic ambiguity for protection: Struggles over opacity, equivocality, and absurdity around the Sicilian Mafia. Acad. Management J. Forthcoming.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Cole BM , Chandler D (2019) A model of competitive impression management: Edison vs. Westinghouse in the war of the currents. Admin. Sci. Quart. 64(4):1020–1063.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Contigiani A , Levinthal DA (2019) Situating the construct of lean start-up: adjacent conversations and possible future directions. Indust. Corporate Change 28(3):551–564.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Cornelissen JP , Werner MD (2014) Putting framing in perspective: A review of framing and frame analysis across the management and organizational literature. Acad. Management Ann. 8(1):181–235.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Cyert RM , March JG (1963) A Behavioral Theory of the Firm , 1st ed. (Basil Blackwell, Cambridge, MA).Google Scholar
• Cyert RM , March JG (1992) A Behavioral Theory of the Firm, 2nd ed. (Wiley-Blackwell, Cambridge, MA).Google Scholar
• Edmondson AC (2019) The Fearless Organization (John Wiley, Hoboken, NJ).Google Scholar
• Elsbach KD (1994) Managing organizational legitimacy in the California cattle industry: The construction and effectiveness of verbal accounts. Admin. Sci. Quart. 39(1):57–88.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Elsbach KD , Kramer RM (1996) Members’ responses to organizational identity threats: Encountering and countering the Business Week rankings. Admin. Sci. Quart. 41(3):442–476.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ethiraj SK , Levinthal DA (2009) Hoping for A to Z while rewarding only A: Complex and multiple organizational goals. Organ. Sci. 20(1):4–21.Link, Google Scholar
• Feldman M (1991) The meanings of ambiguity: Learning from stories and metaphors. Frost P, Moore L, Reis Louis M, Lundberg C, Martin J, eds. Reframing Organizational Culture (Sage Publications, Newbury Park, CA), 145–156.Google Scholar
• Feldman MS , March JG (1981) Information in organizations as signal and symbol. Admin. Sci. Quart. 26(2):171–186.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Gaba V , Bhattacharya S (2012) Aspiration, innovation, and corporate venture capital: A behavioral perspective. Strategic Entrepreneurial J. 6(2):178–199.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Gaba V , Greve HR (2019) Safe or profitable? Pursuing conflicting goals. Organ. Sci. 30(4):647–667.Link, Google Scholar
• Gaba V , Joseph J (2013) Corporate structure and performance feedback: Aspirations and adaptation in M-form firms. Organ. Sci. 24(4):1102–1119.Link, Google Scholar
• Gavetti G , Warglien M (2015) A model of collective interpretation. Organ. Sci. 26(5):1263–1283.Link, Google Scholar
• Gavetti G , Ocasio W , Levinthal DA (2007) Neo-Carnegie: The Carnegie school’s past, present, and reconstructing for the future. Organ. Sci. 18(3):523–536.Link, Google Scholar
• Gavetti G , Greve HR , Levinthal DA , Ocasio W (2012) The behavioral theory of the firm: Assessment and prospects. Acad. Management Ann. 6(1):1–40.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Greve HR (2003) Organizational Learning from Performance Feedback (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK).Crossref, Google Scholar
• Greve HR (2008) A behavioral theory of firm growth: Sequential attention to size and performance goals. Acad. Management J. 61:476–494.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Greve HR , Gaba V (2017) Performance feedback in organizations and groups: Common themes. Argote L, Levine JM, eds. The Handbook of Group and Organizational Learning (Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK).Google Scholar
• Haunschild PR , Sullivan BN (2002) Learning from complexity: Effects of prior accidents and incidents on airlines’ learning. Admin. Sci. Quart. 47(4):609–643.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Hu S , Bettis RA (2018) Multiple organizational goals with feedback from shared technological task environments. Organ. Sci. 29(5):873–889.Link, Google Scholar
• Hu S , He Z , Blettner D , Bettis RA (2017) Conflict inside and outside: Social comparisons and attention shifts in multidivisional firms. Strategic Management J. 38(7):1435–1454.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Jordan AH , Audia PG (2012) Self-enhancement and learning from performance feedback. Acad. Management Rev. 37(2):211–231.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Joseph J , Gaba V (2015) The fog of feedback: Ambiguity and firm-responses to multiple aspiration levels. Strategic Management J. 36(13):1960–1978.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Kacperczyk A , Beckman CM , Moliterno TP (2015) Disentangling risk and change: Internal and external comparisons in the mutual fund Industry. Admin. Sci. Quart. 60(2):228–262.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Kahneman D (2011) Thinking Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York).Google Scholar
• Kaplan S (2008) Framing contests: Making strategy under uncertainty. Organ. Sci. 19(5):729–752.Link, Google Scholar
• Kim JY , Miner AS (2007) Vicarious learning from the failures and near-failures of others: Evidence from the U.S. commercial banking industry. Acad. Management J. 50(2):687–714.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Kim JY , Kim JYJ , Miner AS (2009) Organizational learning from extreme performance experience: The impact of success and recovery experience. Organ. Sci. 20(6):958–978.Link, Google Scholar
• Kotlar J , De Massis A , Wright M , Frattini F (2018) Organizational goals: Antecedents, formation processes and implications for firm behavior and performance. Internat. J. Management Rev. 20(suppl. 1):S3–S18.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Lant TK , Shapira Z (2008) Managerial reasoning about aspirations and expectations. J. Econom. Behav. Organ. 66(1):60–73.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Lawrence TB , Mauws MK , Dyck B , Kleysen RF (2005) The politics of organizational learning: Integrating power into the 4I framework. Acad. Management Rev. 30(1):180–191.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Levinthal DA , March JG (1993) The myopia of learning. Strategic Management J. 14(S2):95–112.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Levinthal DA , Rerup C (2006) Crossing an apparent chasm: Bridging mindful and less mindful perspectives on organizational learning. Organ. Sci. 17(4):502–513.Link, Google Scholar
• Levitt B , March JG (1988) Organizational learning. Annual Rev. Sociol. 14:319–340.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Maitlis S , Christianson M (2014) Sensemaking in organizations: Taking stock and moving forward. Acad. Management Ann. 8:57–125.Crossref, Google Scholar
• March JG (1962) The business firm as a political coalition. J. Politics 24(4):662–678.Crossref, Google Scholar
• March JG (1978) Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice. Bell J. Econom. 9(2):587–608.Crossref, Google Scholar
• March JG (1987) Ambiguity and accounting: The elusive link between information and decision making. Accounting Organ. Soc. 12(2):153–168.Crossref, Google Scholar
• March JG (1988) Decisions and Organizations (Basil Blackwell, New York).Google Scholar
• March JG (1991) How decisions happen in organizations. Human Comput. Interactions 6(2):95–117.Crossref, Google Scholar
• March JG , Shapira Z (1992) Variable risk preference and the focus of attention. Psych. Rev. 99(1):172–183.Crossref, Google Scholar
• March JG (1994) A Primer on Decision Making (The Free Press, New York).Google Scholar
• March JG (1999) The Pursuit of Organizational Intelligence (Blackwell Publishers, Malden, MA).Google Scholar
• March JG (2006) Poetry and the rhetoric of management: Easter 1916. J. Management Inquries 15(1):70–72.Crossref, Google Scholar
• March JG (2015) Do the mistakes lie in decision makers or in economics? Subramanian R , ed. Performance and Progress (Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK), 28–37.Crossref, Google Scholar
• March JG (2008) Explorations in Organizations (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA).Crossref, Google Scholar
• March JG (2010) The Ambiguities of Experience (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY).Crossref, Google Scholar
• March JG , Olsen JP (1975) The uncertainty of the past: Organizational learning under ambiguity. Eur. J. Political Res. 3:147–171.Crossref, Google Scholar
• March JG , Olsen JP (1976) Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations (Universitets Forlaget, Bergen, Norway).Google Scholar
• March JG , Olsen JP (1984) The new institutionalism: Organizational factors in political life. Amer. Political Sci. Rev. 78(3):734–749.Crossref, Google Scholar
• March JG , Sevón GA (1984) Gossip, information, and decision-making. Larkey PD , Sproull LS , eds. Advances in Information Processing in Organizations , vol. 1 (JAI Press, Greenwich, CT), 95–107.Google Scholar
• March JG , Shapira Z (1987) Managerial perspectives on risk and risk taking. Management Sci. 33(11):1404–1418.Link, Google Scholar
• March JG , Simon H (1958) Organizations (Wiley, New York).Google Scholar
• March JG , Sproull LS , Tamuz M (1991) Learning from samples of one or fewer. Organ. Sci. 2(1):1–13.Link, Google Scholar
• Maslach D , Branzei O , Rerup C , Zbaracki M (2018) Noise as signal in learning from rare events. Organ. Sci. 29(2):225–246.Link, Google Scholar
• Meacham JA (1983) Wisdom and the context of knowledge. Kuhn D , Meacham JA , eds. Contributions in Human Development , vol. 8 (Karger, Basel), 111–134.Google Scholar
• Meacham JA (1990) The loss of wisdom. Sternberg RS , ed. Wisdom. Its Nature, Origins, and Development (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK), 181–211.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Mintzberg H (1983) Power in and around Organizations (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ).Google Scholar
• Moliterno TP , Beck N , Beckman CM , Meyer M (2014) Knowing your place: Social performance feedback in good times and bad times. Organ. Sci. 25(6):1684–1702.Link, Google Scholar
• Morrison E , Milliken F (2000) Organizational silence: A barrier to change and development in a pluralistic world. Acad. Management Rev. 25(4):706–725.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Newark DA (2018) Leadership and the logic of absurdity. Acad. Management Rev. 43(2):198–216.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Newark DA (2014) Indecision and the construction of self. Organ. Behav. Human Decision Process 125(2):162–174.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ocasio W , Rhee L , Boynton D (2020) March and the pursuit of organizational intelligence: The interplay between procedural rationality and sensible foolishness. Indust. Corporate Change 29(1):225–239.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Pfeffer J (2010) Power: Why Some People Have It—And Others Don’t (Harper Collins, New York).Google Scholar
• Pfeffer J , Fong CT (2005) Building organization theory from first principles: The self-enhancement principle and understanding power and influence. Organ. Sci. 16(4):372–388.Link, Google Scholar
• Porter ME (1996) What is strategy? Harvard Bus. Rev. 74(6):61–78.Google Scholar
• Posen HE , Keil T , Kim S , Meissner F (2018) Renewing research on problemistic search: A review and research agenda. Acad. Management Ann. 12(1):208–251.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Rerup C (2006) Success, failure and the grey zone: How organizations learn or don’t learn from ambiguous experience. Atinc G, ed. Academy of Management Proc., vol. 1 (Academy of Management, Briarcliff Manor, NY), BB1–BB6.Google Scholar
• Rerup C (2009) Attentional triangulation: Learning from unexpected rare crisis. Organ. Sci. 20(5):876–893.Link, Google Scholar
• Rerup C , Feldman MS (2011) Routines as a source of change in organizational schema: The role of trial-and-error learning. Acad. Management J. 54(3):577–610.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Rerup C , Zbaracki MJ (2021) The politics of learning from rare events. Organ. Sci. Forthcoming.Link, Google Scholar
• Ries E (2011) The Lean Startup. How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (Crown Business, New York).Google Scholar
• Ross J , Staw BM (1986) Expo 86: An escalation prototype. Admin. Sci. Quart. 31(2):274–297.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Rowley TI , Shipilov AV , Greve HR (2017) Board reform vs. profits: The effect of rankings on the adoption of governance practices. Strategic Management J. 38(4):815–833.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Salvato C , Rerup C (2018) Routine regulation: Balancing conflicting goals in organizational routines. Admin. Sci. Quart. 63(1):170–209.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Sandberg J , Tsoukas H (2015) Making sense of the sensemaking perspective: Its constituents, limitations, and opportunities for further development. J. Organ. Behav. 36(S1):6–32.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Sedikides C , Strube MJ (1995) The multiply motivated self. Personality Social Psych. Bull. 21(12):1330–1335.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Shinkle GA (2012) Organizational aspirations, reference points, and goals: Building on the past and aiming for the future. J. Management 38(1):415–455.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Simon HA (1955) A behavioral model of rational choice. Quart. J. Econom. 69(1):99–118.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Simon HA (1964) On the concept of organizational goal. Admin. Sci. Quart. 9(March):1–22.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Staw BM (1976) Knee-deep in the big muddy: A study of escalating commitment to a chosen course of action. Organ. Behav. Human Performace 16(1):27–44.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Stevens R , Moray N , Bruneel J , Clarysse B (2015) Attention allocation to multiple goals: The case of for profit social enterprises. Strategic Management J. 36(7):1006–1016.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Strike V , Rerup C (2016) Mediated sensemaking. Acad. Management J. 59(3):880–905.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Sutcliffe KM (2013) Sensemaking. Augier M , Teece D , eds. Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management (Palgrave Macmillan, London), 1–4.Google Scholar
• Washburn M , Bromiley P (2012) Comparing aspiration models: The role of selective attention. J. Management Stud. 49(1):896–917.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Weick KE (1979) The Social Psychology of Organizing , 2nd ed. (McGraw-Hill, New York).Google Scholar
• Weick KE (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations, Foundations for Organizational Science (Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA).Google Scholar
• Weick KE (2002) Puzzles in organizational learning: An exercise in disciplined imagination. British J. Management 13:S7–S15.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Weick KE (2011) Organizing for transient reliability: The production of dynamic non-events. J. Contingencies Crisis Management 19(1):21–27.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Weick KE (2001) The attitude of wisdom. Weick KE , ed. Making Sense of the Organization (Blackwell Publishing, Cambridge, MA), 361–403.Google Scholar
• Weick KE , Roberts KH (1993) Collective mind in organizations: Heedful interrelating on flight decks. Admin. Sci. Quart. 38(3):357–381.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Weick KE , Sutcliffe KM , Obstfeld D (1999) Organizing for high reliability: Processes of collective mindfulness. Sutton RI, Staw BM, eds. Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 21 (JAI Press, Greenwich, CT), 81–123.Google Scholar
• Zbaracki MJ , Bergen M (2010) When truces collapse: A longitudinal study of price-adjustment routines. Organ. Sci. 21(5):894–908.Link, Google Scholar