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Abstract
Strategic consensus — i.e., “shared understanding of strategic priorities among managers at thetop, middle, and/or operating levels of the organization” (Kellermanns et al. 2005, p. 721) -- is considered essential to organizational performance. Unfortunately, organizations often struggle to develop strategic consensus; managers’ perceptions regarding strategic priorities often become polarized (i.e., two distinct subgroups with differing opinions) or fragmented (i.e., multiple subgroups with varying opinions) leading subgroups to work at cross-purposes toward different priorities. Therefore, understanding the antecedents of strategic consensus (i.e., why and how does strategic consensus emerge?) is an important goal for organizational research. Conceptual work on strategic consensus depicts the phenomenon as complex and dynamic -- ‘emerging’ over time through networked social interaction processes among managers at multiple organizational levels. However, prior empirical research on strategic consensus has typically depicted the phenomenon as a static one-time event (using cross-sectional data) and focused almost exclusively on top-down antecedents such as the attributes or behaviors of senior leaders or the formal organizational structure. In contrast to prior work, this dissertation aims to advance knowledge surrounding the antecedents of strategic consensus by modeling the dynamic micro- level interaction processes among upper- and middle-level managers that give rise to macro-level emergent patterns of strategy perceptions. I began by leveraging theories of organizational social networks, top management team dynamics, and social influence to articulate a series of ‘tendencies’ or ‘rules’ governing micro-level interaction processes that are especially relevant to strategic consensus. Then, I translated this ‘verbal theory’ into a formal (mathematical) theory which I implemented as an agent-based computational model. I verified and validated the formal
theory using perceptual self-report and social network data from the upper- and middle-level managers within three organizations. Lastly, I conducted a series of virtual experiments to examine two preliminary research questions considering the impact of communication network structure and influence on the patterns of strategic priority perceptions that are likely to arise within an organizational system. Ultimately, the results of this dissertation provide initial insights into the dynamics of strategic consensus emergence and suggest multiple avenues for future research.