Managerial Response to Changing Environments: Perspectives on Problem Sensing from Social Cognition

Abstract

? 1982 by Cornell University. 000 1-8392/82/2704-0548/$00.7 5 This paper characterizes managerial problem sensing, a necessary precondition for managerial activity directed toward organizational adaptation, as composed of noticing, interpreting, and incorporating stimuli. It then reviews the constituent social cognition processes that make certain kinds of problem-sensing behavior, including errors, relatively likely to occur. Implications for the organizational issues of crisis, chance events, break points, and extreme change are explored.