The Role of Time in Organizational Aspirations: Past- and Future-Oriented Performance Feedback

Abstract

Research in the tradition of the Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF) has long analyzed organizations’ reactions to discrepancies between aspiration and actual performance – yet largely overlooked the formative role of time. We contribute to organizational aspirations literature by theorizing and empirically testing two temporal dimensions in a single study: (a) the impact of time-persistent innovative under- and overperformance on engagement in external corporate venturing (ECV) and (b) the moderating effect of future financial performance expectations. We develop our hypotheses on temporal dynamics of managerial cognition around performance feedback by integrating insights from momentum theory and strategic reference point theory. We test our hypotheses on a sample of high-tech firms in the U.S., combining patent-based innovation data with ECV deal data and security analyst estimates from 2005 to 2016. We find that firms first decrease and then increase their engagement in ECV with persistent innovative underperformance; and vice versa for persistent innovative overperformance. We also find evidence for the moderating role of future performance expectations on firms’ reactions to time-persistent innovative performance feedback. The importance of temporal dynamics to managerial cognition that we uncover can help to explain conflicting empirical findings on innovative search reactions to performance feedback.