Using Updated Information from the Frontline

Abstract

Effective strategy-making in turbulent industries needs current insights that can inform ongoing decisions around adaptive strategic moves. Frontline employees involved in the daily business transactions are the first to see the subtle changes not otherwise observed by top managers. Top management with dominant logics anchored in previous business contexts usually receive updated information from performance reports for prior periods. All the while, we discern a human inclination linked to the position of power where managers subconsciously discard updated information from frontline employees. We present an experiment to investigate these effects and discuss the implications for strategic response capabilities among firms