The effect of environmental dynamism on middle manager’s attention behaviour : a vignette study

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The Effect of Environmental Dynamism on Middle

Manager’s Attention Behaviour: A Vignette Study

An Analysis of the Moderating Effect of Environmental Dynamism on Middle

Managers’ Attention Behaviour to Corporate Initiatives.

An Academic Master Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Economics & Business University of Amsterdam Business School

Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Business Administration

Student

Roeland van Noort / Student № 11861258 MSc. Business Administration, Strategy Track

University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics & Business

Supervisor

Dr. Nathan Betancourt

University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Business School

Date

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 1

Statement of Originality

This document is written by student Roeland van Noort who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

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Abstract

Purpose – Over the last few decades, many organisations saw their market share and profits decline as a result of an imbalance in their exploitative and exploratory activities. Commonly known as the competency trap, these firms held on to the exploitation of their existing resource base while explorative initiatives were neglected due to their uncertain and risky nature. Middle managers, in particular, are often blamed for this lack of attentional focus due to their close connection with both the operating core and strategic apex by which they fulfil the role of evaluator and advisor of strategic initiatives. Led by the strategic orientation of the particular firm, these managers use their attentional capacity to select the best exploitative and explorative initiatives and champion these to higher management. However, external forces are likely to influence the attentional focus as well. Increased environmental dynamism, characterised by risk and uncertainty, may divert managers’ attention behaviour to either more or less exploratory initiatives depending on the strategic orientation and experience of the firm. Therefore, this study seeks to identify under what conditions environmental dynamism moderates the relationship between the rules of the game and middle manager’s attention to exploratory initiatives.

Design/methodology/approach – By means of a quantitative research method and an experimental vignette methodology, data was collected from 65 professionals distributed over four different scenarios. With the help of several Factorial ANOVA and Simple Effect Analyses, significant differences among groups of respondents could be identified.

Findings – Results indicated there to be significant differences between prospective defensive vignettes with regard to the exploratory attention behaviour of middle managers. Further results even indicated several significant differences between static and dynamic vignettes although a moderation effect could not be generalized to the population. Nevertheless, dynamism did seem to affect the attentional capacity of financially controlled managers in particular, while non-financially controlled managers remained relatively stable in their attention behaviour.

Practical implications – The above findings contribute to the existing literature on middle managers’ strategic and attentional role within the organisation by including an outside-in perspective on the way in which exploratory and exploitative initiatives are leveraged. This could eventually be applied in both small and large corporations which are struggling with finding the right exploration/exploitation balance and prevent themselves from falling into a competency trap.

Originality/value – Although a variety of studies have been dedicated to the concept of middle manager’s attention to entrepreneurial initiatives, no former study has provided detailed empirical evidence or emphasised on this topic by including the external environment as an additional determinant. As a result, it can be concluded that the present study is a unique contribution to the existing literature in this realm.

Keywords: Middle Managers, Strategic Orientation, Attention-Based View, Exploratory versus Exploitative Entrepreneurial Initiatives, Environmental Dynamism.

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1. Introduction & Literature Review

Over the last decade, strategic management scholars have paid ever greater attention to the concept of corporate entrepreneurship (i.e., the sum of a firm's product innovation, business

venturing, and strategic renewal activities (Ling, Simsek, Lubatkin, & Veiga, 2008, p. 557)) in

order to find an answer to the one million dollar question of how to successfully balance exploitative and exploratory activities within an organisation (Levinthal & March, 1993; Ren & Guo, 2011; Ling, Simsek, Lubatkin, & Veiga, 2008; Floyd & Lane, 2000). As stated by Levinthal & March (1993, p. 105): “the basic problem confronting an organisation is to engage

in sufficient exploitation to ensure its current viability and, at the same time, to devote enough energy to exploration to ensure its future viability”. Large, established corporations, in

particular, are often victim of the difference between the two concepts (Ren & Guo, 2011). In fact, due to the uncertain results and the increased organisational distance from the locus of action and adaption, exploratory initiatives are held back in order to make room for the exploitation of “true and tried” solutions (Schildt, Maula, & Keil, 2005). Prime examples include the downturn of telecom pioneer Nokia during the smartphone revolution and industry leader Polaroid in digital imaging (McCray, Gonzalez, & Darling, 2011; Tripsas & Gavetti, 2000). These firms risked the possibility of engaging in a competency trap – a standard, potentially self-destructive product of learning as a result of too much exploitation (Levinthal & March, 1993) – and, eventually, failed to get out of it.

Existing literature has elaborated on this problem by incorporating the roles of top-, middle-, and operating-level managers in the organisation. To illustrate, a shift from deploying existing competencies to developing new ones requires a shift in the roles that managers play (Floyd & Lane, 2000). Although the majority of the literature has been dedicated to the role of the strategic apex, the strategic function of middle managers should not be neglected since they form the hub through which most strategic information flows (Floyd & Lane, 2000).

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 6 Additionally, middle management champions strategic alternatives by providing sponsorships for new opportunities delivered by the operating core and making them available to top strategic decision makers (Ren & Guo, 2011; Floyd & Lane, 2000). This indicates that middle managers must maintain both a strong degree of technical competence and an understanding of the firm’s capabilities while, simultaneously, must consider the organisational goals and competitive strategy (Floyd & Lane, 2000). However, the role of middle managers is constraint by the limited attentional capacities which are necessary to filter all available opportunities for the organisation in question (Ren & Guo, 2011). To emphasise, if a potential entrepreneurial opportunity never appears on the middle manager’s radar, the organisation risks the chance of missing out on the next breakthrough innovation. As a result, considerations should be made as to which opportunities to pay attention, and under which circumstances managers pay attention to exploratory rather than exploitative initiatives, and vice versa (Ren & Guo, 2011).

In an early effort to address this issue, Ren & Guo (2011) dedicated an extensive theoretical study that draws on the attention-based view of the firm. That is, “the socially

structured pattern of attention by decision makers within an organisation” (Ocasio, 1997, p.

188). In particular, the attention-based view emphasises on the role of attention structures – defined as “the social, economic, and cultural structures that govern the allocation of time,

effort, and attentional focus of organisational decision makers in their decision making activities” (Ocasio, 1997, p. 195) – which channel and distribute the limited attention of

managers by means of (1) the rules of the game, (2) players and their (3) structural positions, and (4) resources found within the firm (Ocasio, 1997). By and large, the study significantly contributed to the existing literature by suggesting that middle management’s involvement in the corporate entrepreneurial process can be illustrated as a two-phase model. In the first “pre-screening” phase, middle managers discover and evaluate initiatives flowing from the operating core and select those initiatives which conform to the four interrelated attention regulators

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 7 named above (Ren & Guo, 2011). To emphasise, the rules of the game are defined as “the

formal and informal principles of action, interaction, and interpretation that guide and constrain decision makers in accomplishing the organisation’s tasks and in obtaining social status, credits, and rewards in the process” (Ocasio, 1997, p. 196). These principals become

manifest in the firm’s strategic orientation and determine the firm’s strategic behaviour (Ren & Guo, 2011). One of the most cited typologies regarding strategic orientations is presented by Miles, Snow, Meyer, & Coleman (1978). They introduce two major types of organisations: Defenders and Prospectors. In short, whereas defenders try to enact and maintain a stable environment, prospectors prefer to operate in a more dynamic environment and try to maintain a reputation as an innovator (Miles, Snow, Meyer, & Coleman, 1978). As a result, middle managers operating in prospector firms are likely to pay more attention to exploratory entrepreneurial initiatives since their behaviour is directed by the formal and informal principals inherent in the firm’s strategy, while the opposite is true for defender firms (Ren & Guo, 2011). Similarly, the remaining attention structures, like key players and their structural positions, are influencing managerial attention in a comparable fashion. For example, mid-level organisational champions, i.e., those “who create, define, or adopt an idea for a technological

innovation and are willing to assume significant risk to implement the innovation” (Maidique,

1980, as cited in Ren & Guo, 2011, p. 1594), located in boundary-spanning positions, are more likely to notice exploratory entrepreneurial opportunities compared to non-champions located in a typical business unit (Ren & Guo, 2011). Afterwards, once middle management has selected all potential opportunities, the process continues in the “screening” phase where the selected initiatives are “sold” to top management through predictable (e.g., weekly staff meetings) and unpredictable (e.g., technological shocks) policy windows, and eventually receive the necessary corporate resources for exploitation (Ren & Guo, 2011).

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 8 While the role of middle managers within the organisation is well understood within the literature provided by Ren & Guo (2011), the effects of the external environment on management’s attention patterns within the pre-screening phase remains an understudied area of inquiry. Most of the extant literature has dedicated attention to the timely response of organisations to discontinuous changes in the environment by, for example, interorganisational relationships (Maula, Keil, & Zahra, 2013) or customer co-creation (Khanagha, Volberda, & Oshri, 2017). Similarly, strategic management scholars who did include environmental/industry dynamism as the unit of analysis particularly focused on the change in timing of strategic response to major environmental events rather than the effect on management attention structures (Nadkarni & Barr, 2008). Defined as “the perceived instability and continuing

changes in a firm’s markets” (Ren & Guo, 2011, p. 1604; Keats & Hitt, 1988), environmental

dynamism may significantly alter, for example, the levels of slack resources of a firm (Simsek, Veiga, & Lubatkin, 2007). In addition, structural positions may also vary depending on the degree of environmental dynamism. As emphasised by Lawrence & Lorsch (1967), a stable environment often encourages firms to adhere to a high degree of formalized structure, while the opposite is true for dynamic environments. As a result, a change in structure is likely to lead to a change in the positions or roles within them, and eventually the focus of attention by middle managers.

However, compared to the other attention structures, the biggest impact of environmental dynamism on middle managers’ attention behaviour may stem from the specific rules of the game the firm employs and, specifically, the strategic orientation in which these rules are manifested. As described earlier, it is this overarching construct which guides and constrains middle managers’ attention behaviour to exploratory or exploitative initiatives (Ren & Guo, 2011; Ocasio, 1997). However, in the end it is the individual manager who makes the decision to either exploit or explorer. Hence, a change in the environment that causes a change

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 9 in the perceptions of these decision makers due to, for example, increased uncertainty, may eventually cascade into varying resource allocations, adjusted structures, and a new focus of attention. It is for this reason that the rules of the game has been taken as the central unit of analysis of this study together with the change in the individual’s attention as a result of a changing external environment. Moreover, elaborating further on this specific topic would simultaneously contribute to the existing literature which focuses on finding the right balance between exploitation and exploration, as emphasised in the first paragraph. Accordingly, in this paper, I try to address the above research gap by empirically examining the following research question:

Under what conditions does environmental dynamism moderate the relationship between the rules of the game and middle managers’ attention to entrepreneurial opportunities?

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2. Hypotheses Development

This section starts off with an explanation of the relationship between the rules of the game and middle management’s attention to entrepreneurial opportunities. Afterwards, I explain the concept of environmental dynamism and describe the moderating effect of it on the above-mentioned association. Accordingly, academic literature is used to develop several hypotheses which will be tested later in this paper.

2.1 Rules of the Game and Managerial Attention

As noted, the rules of the game are defined as “the formal and informal principles of action,

interaction, and interpretation that guide and constrain decision makers in accomplishing the organisation’s tasks and in obtaining social status, credits, and rewards in the process”

(Ocasio, 1997, p. 196). Additionally, it was already explained that these rules are in large part determining the strategic behaviour of the firm since they are manifested in the firm’s strategic orientation. Although many typologies exist regarding strategic orientation, this paper specifically focusses on the most widely cited typology of Miles, Snow, Meyer, & Coleman (1978). In more detail, Miles et al. (1978) identified four strategy types (i.e., prospectors, analysers, defenders, and reactors) of which prospectors and defenders inhibit significant differences regarding the entrepreneurial dimension (Ren & Guo, 2011). The reason for choosing the typology of Miles & Snow instead of similar typologies from Porter (1980) (i.e., Differentiation and Cost Leadership) or Treacy & Wiersma (1992) (i.e. Product Leadership and Operational Excellence) refers to the fact that this typology specifically emphasises on the relationships between strategy, structure, and process within organisations in congruence with their external environments (Miles et al., 1978). This dynamic aspect is important since this research takes into account that events happening in the environment lead to changes among the managerial processes happening within the firm. Therefore, elaborating on a typology where this dynamic influence is not taken into account would not be representative for this study.

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 11 Besides, prior literature has found support for either some or all of the strategic types Miles et al. (1987) discuss (e.g., Atkins, 1994; Hambrick, 1983; Parnell and Wright, 1993; Snow and Hrebiniak, 1980; Subramanian et al., 1993; Tan, 1997; Weisenfeld-Schenk, 1994; Bentley et al., 2013; Higgins et al., 2015; McDaniel & Kolari, 1987; Nicholas O’Regan & Ghobadian, 2006); making this particular typology academically adequate.

According to Miles et al. (1978), defender organisations enact and maintain a stable environment, and basically isolate themselves in a specific part of the market in order to create a stable domain wherein they produce and sell a limited set of products/services to a narrow segment in the potential market (Miles et al., 1978). What is more, defenders typically invest a myriad amount of resources in technological efficiency in order to be able to perform on a continuous and predictable basis (Miles et al., 1978). Therefore, a defender is perfectly suited for its environment given that the world of tomorrow is similar to the world of today (Miles et al., 1978). On the other end of the strategy continuum one can find prospector organisations; operating in an almost opposite manner compared to defender firms. In fact, unlike maintaining a stable environment, prospectors enact an environment which is more dynamic than those of other industry incumbents (Miles et al., 1978). Moreover, instead of creating a stable domain to operate in, the prospector is continuously looking for the exploitation of new product and market opportunities (Miles et al., 1978). As a result, rather than investing in efficiency, like the defender, the prospector invests in effectiveness, meaning that it can respond to tomorrow’s demands given that tomorrow’s world is different than today’s (Miles et al., 1978).

Although having a greater insight in the rules of the game and, particularly, the strategic orientation of an organisation, the question remains how exactly strategic orientations direct manager’s attention to some entrepreneurial initiatives while ignoring others. An answer is given by Ren & Guo (2011) who state three mechanisms by which strategic orientation regulates middle managers’ attention.

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 12 Firstly, attention is influenced by management control systems, i.e. “formalized routines

and procedures that use information to maintain or alter patterns in organisational activity”

(Ren & Guo, 2011, p. 1593). To exemplify, in prospector organisations, management controls are likely to emphasise on non-financial criteria such as new product development and market share while those in defender firms place more value on financial measures such as short-term budgets (Ren & Guo, 2011). Put differently, a middle manager who is controlled and rewarded by non-financial measures (i.e., within a prospective organisation) would most likely dedicate significant attention to exploratory initiatives in order to leverage those rewards.

The second mechanism is the application of recruiting strategies. That is, the attraction, development and retention of skilful managers with regard to the firm’s strategic orientation (Ren & Guo, 2011). For instance, while a prospector would be keen to have externally-oriented managers focusing on new product development and technologies, defenders would pursue managers who are internally-oriented and are focusing on efficiency rather than effectiveness (Ren & Guo, 2011). To stay with the example of the prospective manager, in order to leverage new opportunities which contribute to the strategic orientation of the firm, this manager would most likely hire applicants (and create a team) who share characteristics of an exploratory nature.

Lastly, attention is regulated by knowledge structures; mental templates employed by managers which facilitate information processing and direct their attention to the most important elements of the organisational environment (Ren & Guo, 2011). Different strategies lead to an attentional focus on different, well-specified strategic elements that, in turn, lead to the development of knowledges structures which help focus manager’s attention on problems consistent with their strategic orientation (Ren & Guo, 2011). However, due to the tacit nature of knowledge structures, meaning it is stored within individuals, these structures are hard, if not

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 13 impossible to manipulate. Hence, this paper excludes knowledge structures from the research. A further operationalisation of the above mechanisms can be found in Chapter 3.2.

According to the above three mechanisms, middle management’s attention is likely to be directed towards a certain entrepreneurial opportunity while moving away from another. As noted above, a firm with a prospector orientation is particularly likely to pay more attention to exploratory initiatives since this would be in line with the control system and recruiting strategy employed, while defenders would most likely prefer exploitative initiatives (Ren & Guo, 2011). Or, as put in terms used by Burgelman (1983), prospectors emphasise autonomous strategic behaviour while defenders emphasise induced strategic behaviour. However, empirical evidence is limited regarding this proposition and therefore this paper hypothesises that: H1a. The effect of management control systems on middle managers’ attention to

entrepreneurial initiatives is positive, such that a change from financial to non-financial control systems leads to increased attention to exploratory initiatives.

H1b. The effect of management control systems on middle managers’ attention to

entrepreneurial initiatives is negative, such that a change from non-financial to financial control systems leads to decreased attention to exploratory initiatives.

H2a. The effect of recruiting strategies on middle managers’ attention to entrepreneurial

initiatives in positive, such that more strategies emphasising exploratory managerial behaviour lead to increased attention to exploratory initiatives.

H2b. The effect of recruiting strategies on middle managers’ attention to entrepreneurial

initiatives is negative, such that more strategies emphasising exploitative managerial behaviour lead to decreased attention to exploratory initiatives.

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 14 2.2 The Moderating Effect of Environmental Dynamism

In the introduction of this paper two firms were highlighted as victims of the increasingly dynamic world every organisation finds itself in nowadays. To recall, both Nokia and Polaroid saw their market leader position diminish as a result of a lack in successful exploration and exploitation of new corporate opportunities. In this paper, environmental dynamism is defined as “the perceived instability and continuing changes in a firm’s markets” (Ren & Guo, 2011, p. 1604). As cited in the previous section, environmental dynamism is characterised by instability, unpredictability and change (Keats & Hitt, 1988; Ensley, Pearce, & Hmieleski, 2006). Furthermore, increased dynamism brings uncertainty to all firms in the market and the individuals within them (Ensley, Pearce, & Hmieleski, 2006). Defined as “the difference

between projected and actual outcomes, and results from the limited availability of information for decision making” (Ensley, Pearce, & Hmieleski, 2006, p. 247), uncertainty could even lead

to high levels of stress and anxiety among individuals. Consequently, if middle management’s focus is constrained by the disturbance of uncertainty, this could have a serious impact on the attention to entrepreneurial opportunities. Especially, since middle management is uniquely positioned to assess the value of novel information, they are expected to have more knowledge of the firm’s strategic situation than the operating core and should be more familiar to operational matters as well as factor- and product markets than the strategic apex or top management team (Floyd & Lane, 2000).

A change in the environment could, therefore, further affect the attention structures by which middle management’s attention to corporate initiatives is determined. As briefly mentioned in the previous section, resources, structural positions, and the firm’s strategic orientation are all likely to be influenced by different levels of industry dynamism. Especially the rules of the game (or strategic orientation), considered as being the overarching mechanism and therefore the focus of this study, is hence discussed below.

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 15 2.3 Environmental Dynamism and the Rules of the Game

In the previous section of this paper an extensive explanation was given regarding the rules of the game and, in particular, its manifestation in the strategic orientation of the firm. Specifically, the typology of Miles et al. (1978) was chosen to differentiate between defender and prospector firms which each deal differently with the industry environment in which they are positioned. As one could recall, while defenders try to isolate themselves and maintain a stable environment by investing in technological efficiency and performing on a predictable basis, prospectors enact and maintain a dynamic environment by investing in effectiveness and exploiting new product and market opportunities (Miles et al., 1978). By means of this information one could already make a pretty accurate prediction about the direction in which environmental dynamism could possibly moderate the relationship between a firm’s rules of the game and middle management’s attention to exploratory initiatives. However, it can be best explained by elaborating on the two determinants of strategic orientation as explained earlier.

To start with, management control systems are likely to be used in an opposite manner by defender and prospector firm. As noted, prospector firms emphasise on non-financial criteria like new product development and gained market share (Miles et al., 1978). Under circumstances of high environmental dynamism middle managers within these firms are likely to invest more and more resources in these activities since their decisions are guided by the formal and informal principals of action, interaction, and interpretation as inherited in the organisation’s strategy (Ocasio, 1997; Ren & Guo, 2011). In other words, due to increased dynamism and, thus, an increasing number of corporate initiatives which could be leveraged, middle managers in prospective firms would most likely take this opportunity to reach the exploratory investment targets set by the non-financial management control systems. Besides, as an innovator, the prospective manager is familiar to the uncertain nature of new initiatives

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 16 and would rather see the opportunity than the risk which is associated with such investments (Miles et al., 1978; Ghoshal, 2003; Rajagopalan & Finkelstein, 1992).

This in sharp contrast to defender firms which set financial measures and strict short-term budgets (Miles et al., 1978). Hence, in dynamic, uncertain environments, middle managers in such defensive firms are even more likely to avoid the risky investments associated with explorative behaviour and focus more on the exploitation of true and tried solutions whilst competing on price or low costs in order to adhere to the control mechanisms powered by strict financial budgets and targets (Ocasio, 1997; Miles et al., 1978).

H3a. Environmental dynamism moderates the relationship between management control

systems and middle managers’ attention to exploratory initiatives, such that increased levels of dynamism lead to a stronger managerial emphasis on non-financial management control systems and, in turn, to stronger values of middle managers’ attention to exploratory initiatives.

H3b. Environmental dynamism moderates the relationship between management control

systems and middle managers’ attention to exploratory initiatives, such that increased levels of dynamism lead to a stronger managerial emphasis on financial management control systems and, in turn, to stronger values of middle managers’ attention to exploratory initiatives.

Likewise, recruitment strategies may show similar contradictions between prospector and defender firms. As stated above, in order to successfully compete on and leverage new product developments and innovations, prospector organisations will particularly focus on the recruitment of effective, externally-oriented managers who support the exploratory behaviour of existing middle managers’ during times of high environmental dynamism (Ren & Guo, 2011; Miles et al., 1978). In fact, since the prospector is structured around flexibility and effectiveness, a defensive recruiting strategy would lead to conflicts regarding orientations (methods vs. results) and decision-making (centralised vs. decentralised) among managers.

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 17 Also known as creative experts, prospective managers are able to think and act at the frontier of innovative ideas and therefore stimulate explorative attention behaviour (Taylor & Giannantonio, 1993). On the contrary, defensive middle managers will hire primarily efficient, internally-oriented managers who focus on reliability and continuity in a specific niche and help to achieve cost reductions (Taylor & Giannantonio, 1993; Ren & Guo, 2011; Miles et al., 1978). These managers show exploitative and loyal behaviour and have a long-term commitment to the organisation they work for (Taylor & Giannantonio, 1993; Ren & Guo, 2011).

By and large, on the basis of the above findings, environmental dynamism is thus likely to moderate the relationship between recruiting strategies and middle manager’s attention to exploratory initiatives. In other words, it is hypothesised that:

H3c. Environmental dynamism moderates the relationship between a prospective recruiting

strategy and middle managers’ attention to exploratory initiatives, such that increased levels of dynamism lead to a stronger managerial emphasis on prospective recruiting strategies and, in turn, to stronger values of middle managers’ attention to exploratory initiatives.

H3d. Environmental dynamism moderates the relationship between a defensive recruiting

strategy and middle managers’ attention to exploratory initiatives, such that increased levels of dynamism lead to a stronger managerial emphasis on defensive recruiting strategies and, in turn, to weaker values of middle managers’ attention to exploratory initiatives.

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Management Control

Systems

Recruiting Strategies

Middle Manager’s

Attention to Exploratory

Initiatives

Environmental

Dynamism

2.4 Conceptual Framework H1a,b (+/-) H2a,b (+/-) H3a (+) H3c (+) H3b (-) H3d (-)

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3. Methodology

3.1 Research Design

3.1.1 Reflection on Methodological Philosophies and Research

This research is building on the epistemological position called realism. According to Bryman & Bell (2015, p. 727), realism can be defined as a “position that acknowledges a reality

independent of the senses that is accessible to the researcher’s tools and theoretical speculations”. In other words, through the use of the appropriate methods, like Experimental

Vignette Methodology (see below), reality can be understood. Moreover, in terms of the ontological orientation, this research takes in an objectivism position due to the use of scenarios (or vignettes) in which predefined categories (i.e., company, managerial role, environment) are given and have a meaning which is external to actors and therefore have an objective reality.

3.1.2 Research Approach and Strategy

This study is characterised by a deductive research approach whereby theory on middle management’s attention behaviour forms the basis for the observations and findings. That is, by means of hypotheses derived from existing theory, a cross-sectional research strategy has been adopted in order to either validate or reject the hypotheses. Besides, as data will be collected by means of an experimental vignette, a quantitative research strategy is being adopted. The purpose of this strategy is to examine changes between the experiment groups and either reject or confirm the pre-defined hypotheses. In addition, it provides the opportunity to collect a large amount of data, in short time-frame and at a low cost.

3.1.3 Research Purpose

As mentioned a couple of times above, this study goes by the name of Experimental Vignette Methodology (EVM). That is, “presenting participants with carefully constructed and realistic

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 20 (Aguinis & Bradley, 2014, p. 352). The greatest benefit of this approach is that it allows the researcher to manipulate and control independent variables what enhances both internal and external validity (Aguinis & Bradley, 2014). A total of four (2x2) scenarios are created based on the concepts of strategic orientation and environmental dynamism which are explained below. A further explanation of EVM can be found in Chapter 3.3.

3.2 Operationalisation of Concepts

3.2.1 Dependent Variable

Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour. This variable measures to which type of initiative or

applicant profile (e.g., exploitative or explorative) middle managers pay most of their attention to. First mentioned by Ocasio (1997), organisational behaviour is the result of the channelling and distribution of attention by the decision makers within the firm. Also known as the attention-based view, this perspective takes into account that organisational success is dependent on the time, effort, and attentional focus decision makers allocate to the issues (i.e., the available collection of categories to make sense of the environment: problems, opportunities, and threats) and answers (i.e., the available collection of action alternatives: proposals, routines, and procedures) in the environment. It is important to mention that, in this study, attention is here referred to as the “focus of attention” (e.g., to which particular issues and answers to pay attention) (Ocasio, 1997). The principle of focus of attention proposes that decision makers are, first of all, selective in the issues and answers they attend to at a particular time, and second, that what decision makers do depends on what issues and answers they focus their attention on (Ocasio, 1997). This selective focus is either a result of automatic or controlled processing. To exemplify, controlled processing is a demanding attentional capacity by which the decision maker is mindful of the issues and answers in the environment and whose attentional capacity is largely under his or her control (Ocasio, 1997). On the contrary, automatic processing does not build on this active control but is rather dependent on long-term

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 21 learning followed by a routinized and habitual course of action (i.e., stimuli from the environment is automatically attended to) (Ocasio, 1997). It is therefore good to understand that in this paper the selective focus is seen majorly from the controlled processing perspective. In fact, this study seeks to elaborate on the mindful change in the participant’s environment; thereby understanding the evaluative rather than the habitual capacity of the individual.

To relate this all back to the present paper, as this study seeks to capture middle manager’s attention behaviour in the context of working within an organisation, it assumes that managers make use of controlled processing in order to make a rational and deliberate decision on whether to pay attention to either an exploitative or exploratory initiative, or an exploitative or explorative applicant. Hence, this paper also assumes that the initiative or applicant picked is also paid attention to. This enables us to see whether a change or manipulation of the environment (i.e., the vignette) will cause the respondent to select either an exploitative or explorative answer. The reason to focus on the selection of an initiative or applicant profile instead of measuring attention relates back to the research approach chosen. As this study incorporates an experimental vignette methodology which is distributed via a self-completion questionnaire, it would be hard, if not impossible, to observe and measure participants’ attention by means of, for example, eye-tracking technology; even though this only captures visual attention rather than cognitive attention (Duchowski, 2007). Chapter 5.3 further elaborates on this issue.

As was briefly explained above, middle managers’ attention behaviour was measured by means of eight binary multiple choice questions including entrepreneurial opportunities and one binary multiple-choice question including recruiting strategies. In more detail, for the eight binary multiple choice questions, each question included one entrepreneurial opportunity (e.g.,

“A new machine is available on the market which has twice the capacity of the current machine.”) followed by both an exploitative (e.g., “use the extra capacity to make the existing

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production process more efficient.”) and an explorative (e.g., “use the extra capacity for the development and production of a new, next-generation product line.”) strategic initiative. The

participant was, in turn, asked to which initiative he or she would dedicate most of his/her attention considering only the information provided in the vignette. As mentioned before, the questions could be answered as either (0) exploitative or (1) explorative, after which the mean value was calculated across the eight binary questions. Please note that a high mean thus indicates that there is much attention to exploratory initiatives, while a low mean indicates that there is little attention to exploratory initiatives. For the recruiting strategies, each participant was provided with two applicant profiles of which one was described as an exploitative manager and the other as an explorative manager. The participant was, in turn, asked which applicant he/she would prefer to hire considering only the information provided in the vignette. Similarly, questions could be answered as either (0) exploitative applicant or (1) explorative applicant. As there was only one question, the mean value could not be calculated, hence the analysis included the respective values of 0 and 1. In order to make sure that only those participants were included who thoroughly read both applicant profiles, answers were controlled for duration by which only those which fell between 10-100 seconds were included in the analysis.

3.2.2 Independent Variables

Rules of the game. The rules of the game are defined as “the formal and informal principles of

action, interaction, and interpretation that guide and constrain decision makers in accomplishing the organisation’s tasks and in obtaining social status, credits, and rewards in the process” (Ocasio, 1997, p. 196). As noted, in this paper the rules of the game are manifested

in the strategic orientation of the firm and limited to either a prospector or defender position. In more detail, the strategic orientation is viewed here from the perspective of the individual firm and its managers; meaning that it is a framework that permits a firm and its managers to assemble specialized assets, identify opportunities to create valued products and services, and

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 23 to deliver these products and services for higher profits in the marketplace (Al-Ansaari, Bederr, & Chen, 2015). In other words, the strategic orientation influences the firm’s internal structure and, in turn, the way in which it manages its tangible and intangible assets (Ferraresi, Quandt, Santos, & Frega, 2012). For instance, while a prospector would continuously look for the exploitation of new product and market opportunities and primarily holds a flexible internal structure, a defender would enact a stable environment by competitive pricing or high-quality products and therefore holds a mechanistic structure (Miles et al., 1978).

The difference between the two types of strategic orientation could be measured using management control systems, recruiting strategies, and knowledge structures (Ren & Guo, 2011). The benefit of manipulating these variables rather than telling participants they are a defender or prospector refers majorly to the creation of a representative vignette. In fact, telling a participant that he/she is monitored by means of non-financial control measures is much more representative to actual decision-making within organisations than telling a participant that he/she is a prospector; what basically does not specify anything. However, for reasons of feasibility, this study only considers the former two determinants. While management control systems and recruiting strategies are directly observable and can be manipulated by, for example, setting high and low values of financial control measures, knowledge structures are inherent in the minds of individuals; hence, not directly observable and therefore difficult to manipulate. For this reason, it has been decided to exclude knowledge structures from the research. Chapter 5 returns to this issue.

Management Control Systems. Management control systems are “the formalized routines and

procedures that use information to maintain or alter patterns in organisational activity” (Ren

& Guo, 2011, p. 1593). It is operationalized by means of experimental vignettes/scenarios. Participants were provided with either a prospective vignette or a defensive vignette. In each vignette, participants received information about a company in which they were asked to

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 24 imagine themselves as being the general manager. In more detail, their role is to evaluate new strategic initiatives in the company and champion those which they think could add most value to the firm. In addition, participants were told that the fictive company employs a management control system – that operates in line with the firm’s strategy – which measures success by either financial (for the defender) or non-financial criteria (for the prospector). For the defender, bonusses could be obtained when the initiatives championed lead to an increase in productivity, cost-savings, or short-term profits (<1 year). For the prospector, bonusses could be obtained when the initiatives the participant champions lead to an increase in new product development, market share, or R&D. Lastly, two control questions were implemented after the vignette to capture any flawed response (e.g., by skipping the scenario) and reduce error (see Chapter 3.3). Please find the complete vignettes in Appendix I.

Recruiting Strategy. A firm’s recruiting strategy is defined as the attraction, development and

retention of skilful managers (Ren & Guo, 2011). Therefore, two applicant profiles were created of which one was described as a prospective, externally-oriented applicant and the other as a defensive, internally-oriented applicant. In more detail, characteristics of the applicant were provided in terms of their previous job function, their previous responsibilities, and their skills. To exemplify, for the prospective applicant, the prior job function was described as a Product Manager at a Corporate Venture Unit, prior responsibilities included the invention of new designs and products, and the skills of the applicant included industrial and spatial design capabilities. In contrast, the defensive applicant was described as someone who worked as an Operations Manager at a global car manufacturer, who had prior experience in creating strategies for productivity and efficiency, and is skilled in operational excellence and Six Sigma. Please find the complete profiles in Appendix I.

Environmental Dynamism. In this paper, environmental dynamism refers to “the perceived

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 25 management control systems and recruiting strategy, environmental dynamism was measured by means of an experimental vignette methodology in which respondents where either assigned to a static or a dynamic scenario. In specific, the dynamic scenario was built around a company operating in the chemical industry and emphasised specifically on aspects like fierce competition, changing customer needs, and an evolving regulatory environment. On the contrary, the static scenario was built around a company operating in the metal industry and highlighted a slow but stable growth rate and low competitive rivalry. The reason for taking the industry or market as the central unit of analysis refers to the fact that the industry environment is the closest environment with regard to the organisation (Hooley, Piercy, & Nicoulaud, 2012). It includes the firm’s clients, suppliers, competitors, and partners. Besides, it is mainly from this environment that the operating core recognises new entrepreneurial opportunities which eventually flow, via middle management, to the top management team (Ren & Guo, 2011). In order to check for respondent fatigue (i.e., not reading the vignette) and the manipulation, a control question had been included at the beginning of the questionnaire asking whether, according to the vignette, the participant was operating in a static or dynamic environment.

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 26 3.3 Performed Research Activities

3.3.1 Selection of Respondents, Sampling Techniques, and Response

Respondents were selected using Amazon Mechanical Turk (M-Turk); a marketplace for work that requires human intelligence (Amazon Mechanical Turk, 2018). This decision has been made on the basis of the requirement of participants with professional work experience and preferably managerial experience. Moreover, Amazon M-Turk provides a wide variety of mechanisms which enhance the quality and specificity of the required data and offers a quick and low-cost alternative to the manual distribution of questionnaires. In more detail, mechanisms which were taken into account included the participants experience with M-Turk and the HIT approval rate. This latter mechanism measures the amount of assignments a registered respondent has successfully completed in order to prevent “unexperienced” members from completing the vignette study (Amazon Mechanical Turk, 2018). The vignettes were randomly assigned to these participants using the randomization function in Qualtrics.

As mentioned above, data was collected by means of an experimental vignette methodology (EVM). This methodology presents a hypothetical scenario to the participant after which he or she has to answer a variety of questions. The reason for choosing an EVM relates to the fact that it seeks a balance between experimental realism and the ability to control independent variables; stimulating both internal and external validity (Aguinis & Bradley, 2014). Besides, since participants do not have to possess any specific prior knowledge to complete the survey, a heterogeneous sample including participants from many different industries and backgrounds could be maintained. Nevertheless, two pilot studies have been conducted prior to the actual vignette study in order to prevent any unclarities and to check for the validity of the presented scales (see Appendix II and III). The first pilot included 45 respondents while the second pilot included 20 respondents (15 when controlled for duration and control questions). Please note that participants from the first pilot had been excluded from

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 27 participation in the second pilot in order to receive the most credible results. On the basis of these pilot studies numerous adjustments had been made of which the most influential was the change in the presentation of initiatives (e.g., from a Likert-scale to a binary, multiple choice question) after pilot 1. As a matter of fact, providing participants with only two options (an exploratory and an exploitative one) creates a more realistic “opportunity cost” in the minds of participants and middle managers, preventing them from paying, for example, lots of attention to all initiatives; especially since participants are often inclined to provide social-desirable answers (Bryman & Bell, 2015). Similarly, in order to check for any flaws in participants’ responses, three control questions had been included (i.e., “According to the scenario, what is

your role as a General Manager of Company X?”). Besides, any response which took more

than two standard deviations and less than one standard deviation from the mean of duration (i.e., the time it takes to complete the survey) were not taken into consideration, although an exception was made for participants whose native language was not English. Similarly, respondents who took more than 100 seconds and less than 10 seconds to complete the question regarding the preferred recruiting strategy were not considered during the analysis of this variable.

In total, 105 participants (90 from the major study + 15 from the second pilot study) successfully completed the vignette study. The reason for including pilot 2 refers to the extra power these additional participants provided and the fact that no crucial adjustments had been made after this pilot except for stylish improvements. After cleaning the data by means of disregarding any response which did not meet the criteria in terms of duplication (checked for by comparing IP addresses and the Longitude/Latitude), duration and control questions, a total of 65 valid responses was left for analysis (i.e., 50 from the major study + 15 from the second pilot study) of which 39 successfully completed the question regarding recruiting strategies within 10 to 100 seconds.

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 28 Looking at the demographics of the participants, one could see a fairly uneven distribution between men (78.5%) and women (21.5%). The average age of the participants was 33.4 years old with a standard deviation (SD) of 9.69. In terms of work experience, the majority of the respondents (52.4%) indicated to have between 2 and 10 years of work experience followed by people having more than 20 years of experience (21.5%). Besides, 67.7% percent of the respondents even indicated to have managerial experience of which the majority (45.5%) said this to be between 2 and 5 years; indicating that the sample is a fairly good representation of the population of middle managers. Lastly, participants predominantly worked in the IT industry (35.4%), followed by Finance (18.5%) and Health Services (9.2%). Please find an overview of the demographics in Table 1.

Table 1 Respondent profile

Content Frequency (% of total)

Age (in years)

<30 years 27 41.5 30-50 33 50.8 >50 years 5 7.7 Gender Male 51 78.5 Female 14 21.5

Work Experience (in years)

0-2 years 5 7.7

2-5 years 17 26.2

5-10 years 17 26.2

10-20 years 12 18.5

<20 years 14 21.5

Managerial Experience (in years)

0-2 years 13 29.5

2-5 years 20 45.5

5-10 years 7 15.9

>10 years 4 9.1

Industry (top 3)

Information Technology (IT) 23 35.4

Finance 12 18.5 Health Services 6 9.2 Other or None 24 36.9 Type of Vignette Defender/Static 20 30.8 Defender/Dynamic 14 21.5 Prospector/Static 17 26.2 Prospector/Dynamic 14 21.5

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4. Data Analysis & Results

This chapter contains the results of the data analysis techniques which were used during the quantitative study.

4.1 Manipulation Check, Descriptive Statistics, and Correlation Analyses

Before running all analyses with regard to the hypotheses, an independent samples T-Test was conducted in order to check if the manipulation between the vignettes actually resulted in significantly different responses. To recall, as part of the control questions, participants were asked whether their scenario was taking place in a dynamic or static environment. This is of great importance since the manipulation must work in order to compare the vignettes and the hypotheses. Fortunately, results indicated that, on average, participants provided with a dynamic vignette indicated more often to be in a dynamic environment (M = 0.75, SE = 0.08), than those provided with a static vignette (M = 0.14, SE = 0.06). This difference -0.62, BCa 95% CI [-0.82, -0.41] was significant t (50) = -6.1, p = .000, and represents a large effect size,

r = 0.65.

The descriptive statistics and correlation analyses are calculated by means of a Pearson Correlation Coefficient and can be found in Table 2. Starting with the control variables, obvious relationships were identified between age, work experience (in years), and managerial experience (in years). So did older participants have both more work and managerial experience, while more experienced workers also had more managerial experience. Besides, age correlated negatively with type of management control system; indicating that younger participants were randomly assigned to more prospective vignettes.

What is more, significant correlations could also be identified between the independent variables and the dependent variables. In fact, middle managers’ attention behaviour correlated significantly with type of recruiting strategy, such that participants who were in favour of a prospector recruiting strategy dedicated more attention to exploratory initiatives. Please note,

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 30 however, that all (N = 65) participants were included here. For reasons of credibility, other analyses with regarded to “recruiting strategy” will only use a subset of this group (N = 39) (as explained above).

Lastly, a correlation analysis was run on the moderator variable. Although this finding cannot be generalized to the population, industry dynamism did, however, show a positive correlation with middle managers’ attention behaviour, such that in a more dynamic environment participants dedicated more attention to exploratory initiatives. Also, environmental dynamism correlated significantly with management control systems, such that prospectors were more often provided with a static vignette, while defenders were more often provided with a dynamic vignette. This could be a result of the uneven distribution of respondents among the vignettes (see Table 1). Chapter 5 elaborates further on this issue and provides additional analyses in order to check if this uneven distribution affects the results in any way.

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 32 4.2 Reliability Analysis and Repeated-Measures ANOVA

4.2.1 Reliability Analysis

In order to check for the reliability of the scale items, a reliability analysis had been conducted including the Cronbach’s Alpha. Reliability means that the measure (i.e., the scale items) consistently reflect the construct that it is measuring (Field, 2015). Put differently, if someone is provided with a prospector vignette, then their overall score on the scale items will probably be high (remember that choosing an exploratory initiative is valued as 1 versus 0 for exploitative). If the scale is reliable, this means that if we randomly select some items from it, the score on these items should also be high. The reliability analysis resulted in a Cronbach’s Alpha of 0.66 which is very close to the threshold of 0.7 (Field, 2015) and could therefore be considered as reliable; especially when considering the small sample size.

4.2.2 Repeated-Measures ANOVA

In order to test the effect of strategic orientation on middle managers’ attention behaviour (hypotheses 1a, 1b, 2a, and 2b), a Factorial ANOVA including Simple Effect Analyses have been conducted which compare the means between the various vignettes. However, since the participants were presented with eight binary corporate initiatives, within-participant mean differences could exist which affect the credibility of using the mean as a comparison tool. Therefore, a one-way repeated-measures ANOVA had been conducted which compares several means that come from the same entities (Field, 2015). In other words, if this test would be significant, then this would indicate that participants dedicate both explorative and exploitative attention to the initiatives posed, leading to inconsistent response sets. If not, then this indicates that participants dedicate consistent exploratory or exploitative attention to each initiative.

To emphasise on the results, Mauchly’s test indicated that the assumption of sphericity had been violated, X2 (27) 45.2, p = 0.016, therefore Huynh-Feldt corrected tests are reported (ɛ = 0.95) since the Greenhouse-Geisser epsilon was greater than 0.75 (Field, 2015). The results

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 33 show that attention-behaviour was not significantly affected by the type of initiative posed (F (6.6, 425.36) = 0.91, p = .493). As a result, scores did not significantly differ within participants, meaning that the overall mean of attention-behaviour is a good statistic to be used in the hypotheses testing.

4.3 Factorial ANOVA for the Independent and Dependent Variables

4.3.1 Main Effects

As explained above, hypotheses 1(a, b), 2(a, b) and 3(a, b) could be tested by means of a Factorial ANOVA. This test allows us to compare the relationship between strategic orientation and middle managers’ attention behaviour of participants from different environmental vignettes. Due to the fact that a smaller sample had been used for the analysis of the variable “recruiting strategy” (i.e., the “10-100 seconds” sample), two Factorial Analyses have been conducted. A summary of the results can be found in Table 3a and 3b.

To recall, hypothesis 1a suggested that a change from financial to non-financial management control systems has a positive effect on middle managers’ attention to exploratory initiatives. The opposite is true for hypothesis 1b which suggested that financial management control systems have a negative effect on middle managers’ attention to exploratory initiatives. Therefore, we could expect that as management control system increases to a non-financial one, middle managers’ exploratory attention behaviour would increase as well, and vice versa.

In accordance with the expectations, there was a significant main effect of management control systems on middle management attention behaviour, F(1, 61) = 8.35, p = .005, ƞ² = .12, indicating that when management control systems “increased” to non-financial ones, exploratory attention behaviour increased proportionally, and vice versa (see Table 3a and Figure 1).

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 34 In addition, hypothesis 2a assumed that recruiting strategies emphasising exploratory managerial competences positively affects middle managers’ attention to exploratory initiatives. On the contrary, hypothesis 2b assumed that recruiting strategies emphasising exploitative managerial competences negatively affects middle managers’ attention to exploratory initiatives. Confirming the expectations, results indicated that there was a significant main effect of type of recruiting strategy on middle managers’ exploratory attention behaviour F(1, 35) = 11.16, p = .002, ƞ² = .24 (see Table 3b and Figure 2), meaning that when middle managers indicated to be in favour of a prospective recruiting strategy (or applicant), exploratory attention behaviour increased proportionally, and vice versa.

Figure 1 – Mean values of Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour at different values of Management Control Systems

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 35 In sum, we were right in hypothesising that the type of management control system influences the level of exploratory attention behaviour among middle managers. Specifically, middle managers’ operating under a non-financial management control system dedicated significantly more attention to exploratory initiatives compared to middle managers working under a financial control system. Moreover, we were also right in suggesting that the type of recruiting strategy preferred by middle managers’ significantly affects their attention behaviour to exploratory initiatives. In fact, results indicated that middle managers in favour of a prospective applicant dedicate significantly more attention to exploratory initiatives compared to those in favour of a defensive applicant/recruiting strategy.

Figure 2 – Mean values of Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour at different values of Recruiting Strategies

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4.3.2 Interaction Effects and Simple Effects Analyses

Until now, the role of environmental dynamism has been ignored in the interpretation of the Factorial Analysis. However, looking at interaction effect between management control system or recruiting strategies and environmental dynamism will give a better insight in the moderating effect as proposed in hypothesis 3a, 3b, 3c, and 3d.

First of all, there was a non-significant interaction effect between management control systems and environmental dynamism F(1, 61) = 2.17, p = .146, ƞ² = .03, meaning that the effect of management control systems on middle managers’ attention behaviour was not significantly different in a dynamic environment than it was in a static environment (see Table 3a and Figure 3). Nevertheless, according to the Simple Effect Analysis (which generates pairwise comparisons between the independent variables), we could see some interesting results. To start with, there was a significant difference between middle managers operating under a financial and non-financial control system and their dedication to exploratory initiatives when operating in a static environment. However, this difference diminishes in a dynamic environment (see Table 4). A follow up analysis indicates that this is a result of a significant difference between financially controlled middle managers provided with static vignette and a dynamic vignette (see Table 5), whereby those provided with a dynamic environment dedicate increased attention to exploratory initiatives. In other words, financially controlled middle managers operating in a dynamic environment dedicate significantly more attention to exploratory initiatives than when operating in a static environment. So although the moderation effect could not be generalized to the population, environmental dynamism does seem to influence middle manager’s attention provided they are controlled by a financial control system.

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 37 Figure 3 – Interaction effect of Management Control System and Environmental

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 38 Moving on to recruiting strategies, a non-significant interaction effect was found between recruiting strategies and environmental dynamism F(1, 60) = 0.02, p = .88, ƞ² = .00, indicating that also the effect of preferred recruiting strategy on middle managers’ attention behaviour was not significantly different in a dynamic environment compared to a static environment (see Table 3b and Figure 4). This non-significant effect could be further explained by the pairwise comparisons generated by the Simple Effects Analysis. In fact, middle managers’ in favour of a prospective recruiting strategy did dedicate significantly more attention to exploratory initiatives than those in favour of a defensive strategy. Moreover, this was true for both a static and a dynamic environment (see Table 6). Nevertheless, the mean values of exploratory attention behaviour did not significantly differ between static and dynamic environments (see Table 7), meaning that both in a static and in a dynamic environment, middle managers dedicate approximately the same level of exploratory attention behaviour regardless whether they favour a prospective or defensive recruiting strategy. However, although the mean values of exploratory attention behaviour do not significantly differ between the environmental settings, they do remain remarkably constant. This indicates that, although they do not significantly increase, middle managers’ in favour of a prospective applicant do still dedicate much attention to exploratory initiatives. The same could be said for middle managers’ in favour of a defensive applicant.

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Dissertation Report ● Middle Managers’ Attention Behaviour| 39 Figure 4 – Interaction effect of Recruiting Strategy and Environmental Dynamism on

The effect of environmental dynamism on middle manager’s attention behaviour : a vignette study