IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ororsc/v12y2001i5p599-611.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Judgmental Errors, Interactive Norms, and the Difficulty of Detecting Strategic Surprises

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph Lampel

    (University of Nottingham, Business School, Nottingham, United Kingdom, NG8 1AE)

  • Zur Shapira

    (Stern School of Business, New York University, 44 W. 4th Street, New York, New York 10012)

Abstract

The concept of strategic surprise has been used by writers on military strategy to explore the successful amplification of resources during battle. This paper applies the same concept to subcontracting relationships and develops a cognitive framework to explain the phenomenon of strategic surprises, using buyer-supplier relations as an example. We first examine the factors that produce vulnerability to strategic surprise in cooperative situations. Then, we explore the reasons why firms are caught by surprise in spite of their vigilance. We present a model representing false alarms and strategic surprises as judgmental errors. We argue that judgmental errors cause misinterpretation of evidence and a consequent sense of false security. Interactive norms, which exist in some industries and may be taken as proxies for enduring relationships, may increase the likelihood of misjudgment and strategic surprises.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph Lampel & Zur Shapira, 2001. "Judgmental Errors, Interactive Norms, and the Difficulty of Detecting Strategic Surprises," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(5), pages 599-611, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:12:y:2001:i:5:p:599-611
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.12.5.599.10094
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.12.5.599.10094
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/orsc.12.5.599.10094?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Colin F. Camerer, 1997. "Progress in Behavioral Game Theory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 167-188, Fall.
    2. Frank, Robert H, 1987. "If Homo Economicus Could Choose His Own Utility Function, Would He Want One with a Conscience?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 593-604, September.
    3. Edward H. Lorenz, 1993. "Flexible Production Systems and the Social Construction of Trust," Politics & Society, , vol. 21(3), pages 307-324, September.
    4. Edward Lorenz, 1988. "Neither Friends nor Strangers," Post-Print halshs-00483728, HAL.
    5. Joseph Farrell, 1987. "Cheap Talk, Coordination, and Entry," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 18(1), pages 34-39, Spring.
    6. Jack A. Goldstone, 1994. "Is Revolution Individually Rational?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(1), pages 139-166, January.
    7. H. Peyton Young, 1996. "The Economics of Convention," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 105-122, Spring.
    8. Edward Lorenz, 1993. "Flexible Production Systems and the Social Construction of Trust," Post-Print halshs-00483723, HAL.
    9. E. H. Bowman, 1963. "Consistency and Optimality in Managerial Decision Making," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 9(2), pages 310-321, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joseph Lampel & Jamal Shamsie & Zur Shapira, 2009. "Experiencing the Improbable: Rare Events and Organizational Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(5), pages 835-845, October.
    2. Miguel Pina e Cunha & Ken Kamoche & Stewart R. Clegg, 2004. "Clues, cues and complexity: unpacking the concept of organizational surprise," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp453, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    3. Claus Rerup, 2009. "Attentional Triangulation: Learning from Unexpected Rare Crises," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(5), pages 876-893, October.
    4. Heugens, P.P.M.A.R. & Zyglidopoulos, S.C., 2007. "Unfit to Learn? How Long View Organizations Adapt to Environmental Jolts," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2007-014-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    5. Michael P. Haselhuhn & Devin G. Pope & Maurice E. Schweitzer & Peter Fishman, 2012. "The Impact of Personal Experience on Behavior: Evidence from Video-Rental Fines," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(1), pages 52-61, January.
    6. Tammy E. Beck & Donde Ashmos Plowman, 2009. "Experiencing Rare and Unusual Events Richly: The Role of Middle Managers in Animating and Guiding Organizational Interpretation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(5), pages 909-924, October.
    7. Ronald Klingebiel & Arnoud De Meyer, 2013. "Becoming Aware of the Unknown: Decision Making During the Implementation of a Strategic Initiative," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(1), pages 133-153, February.
    8. Corrado Gatti, 2007. "Philip Bromiley, The Behavioral Foundations of Strategic Management," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 11(1), pages 105-109, March.
    9. Feduzi, Alberto & Runde, Jochen, 2014. "Uncovering unknown unknowns: Towards a Baconian approach to management decision-making," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 268-283.
    10. Joseph Porac & Zur Shapira, 2001. "On Mind, Environment, and Simon's Scissors of Rational Behavior," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 5(3), pages 206-212, September.
    11. Jan-Kees Schakel & Paul C. van Fenema & Samer Faraj, 2016. "Shots Fired! Switching Between Practices in Police Work," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(2), pages 391-410, April.
    12. Gabriel Natividad, 2013. "Financial Slack, Strategy, and Competition in Movie Distribution," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 846-864, June.
    13. Miguel Pina e Cunha, 2003. "Time travelling: organisational foresight as temporal reflexity," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp426, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    14. Arman ESHRAGHI & Hidetomo TAKAHASHI & Peng XU, 2021. "Early-Life War Experiences and Corporate Financial Outcomes," Discussion papers 21081, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    15. Christian Geisler Asmussen & Marcus M. Larsen & Torben Pedersen, 2016. "Organizational Adaptation in Offshoring: The Relative Performance of Home- and Host-Based Learning Strategies," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(4), pages 911-928, August.
    16. C. Gopinath, 2005. "Recognizing Decline: The Role of Triggers," American Journal of Business, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 20(1), pages 21-27.
    17. Joshi, Amol M. & Hemmatian, Iman, 2018. "How do legal surprises drive organizational attention and case resolution? An analysis of false patent marking lawsuits," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1741-1761.
    18. Karen Chinander Dye & J. P. Eggers & Zur Shapira, 2014. "Trade-offs in a Tempest: Stakeholder Influence on Hurricane Evacuation Decisions," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(4), pages 1009-1025, August.
    19. Stephanie Duchek, 2020. "Organizational resilience: a capability-based conceptualization," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 13(1), pages 215-246, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hancké, Bob, 2003. "Many roads to flexibility. How large firms built autarchic regional production systems in France," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 513, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Valérie Revest & Samira Guennif, 2005. "Social structure and reputation: the NASDAQ case study," Post-Print halshs-00163731, HAL.
    3. Inkpen, Andrew C. & Currall, Steven C., 1998. "The nature, antecedents, and consequences of joint venture trust," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 1-20, July.
    4. Sako, Mari & Helper, Susan, 1998. "Determinants of trust in supplier relations: Evidence from the automotive industry in Japan and the United States," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 387-417, March.
    5. Mathieu Detchessahar, 1998. "L'homologie des trajectoires socioprofessionnelles des acteurs de la coopération interentreprises: un vecteur de confiance et de stabilité," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 1(1), pages 49-70, March.
    6. Robert J. Bennett, 1998. "Business associations and their potential contribution to the competitiveness of SMEs," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 243-260, January.
    7. Paul Anand, 1998. "Blame, Game Theory and Economic policy," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 111-123, January.
    8. Alvi, Eskander, 1998. "Fairness and self-interest: An assessment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 245-261.
    9. Alessandro Innocenti & Sandrine Labory, 2004. "Outsourcing and Information Management," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 1(1), pages 107-125, June.
    10. Illoong Kwon & Kitae Sohn, 2021. "Trust or distrust: entrepreneurs vs. self-employed," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1553-1570, April.
    11. Kanazawa, Satoshi, 2005. "Is "discrimination" necessary to explain the sex gap in earnings?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 269-287, April.
    12. Ingela Alger & Jörgen W. Weibull, 2013. "Homo Moralis—Preference Evolution Under Incomplete Information and Assortative Matching," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(6), pages 2269-2302, November.
    13. Fábio Pereira Silva & Reinaldo Guerreiro & Eduardo Flores, 2019. "Voluntary versus enforced tax compliance: the slippery slope framework in the Brazilian context," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 66(2), pages 147-180, June.
    14. Maarten C.W. Janssen, 1997. "Focal Points," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 97-091/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    15. Alger, Ingela & Weibull, Jörgen W., 2014. "Evolution leads to Kantian morality," TSE Working Papers 14-504, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Jun 2015.
    16. Andonie, Costel & Kuzmics, Christoph, 2012. "Pre-election polls as strategic coordination devices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 681-700.
    17. Olivier Gossner & Nicolas Melissas, 2006. "Informational Cascades Elicit Private Information ," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 47(1), pages 297-325, February.
    18. Ball, Richard, 2017. "Violations of monotonicity in evolutionary models with sample-based beliefs," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 100-104.
    19. Antonio Cabrales & Michalis Drouvelis & Zeynep Gurguy & Indrajit Ray, 2017. "Transparency is Overrated: Communicating in a Coordination Game with Private Information," CESifo Working Paper Series 6781, CESifo.
    20. Joshua M. Epstein, 2007. "Agent-Based Computational Models and Generative Social Science," Introductory Chapters, in: Generative Social Science Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling, Princeton University Press.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:12:y:2001:i:5:p:599-611. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.