Attention in Complex Organizations: Top-Down and Bottom-Up Attention and Transition to New Technologies

Abstract

This paper examines how top-down and bottom-up drivers of managerial attention affect organizational shifts to a new technology. Using a unique data set of corporate earnings calls and mobile device product launches, I explore the relationship between the goal focus of the corporate office and business unit performance feedback as well as their joint impact on business unit transition to a new technological standard. In addition to demonstrating the hypothesized effects for business unit feedback, the results show that corporate goal focus attenuates feedback effects — but only when there is a corporate focus on poor performance. The findings presented here suggest that business units rely more heavily on goals established by corporate headquarters, especially when those units engage in problemistic or slack search. This study builds on performance feedback theory, the attention-based view and cognitive perspectives of strategy, and it reconciles the many drivers of attention within a complex organization.