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Sanger Dissertation FINAL 032816.pdf (3.42 MB)

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DELIBERATE DISRUPTION: HOW CORPORATE LEADERS BREAK THE LIABILITY OF EXPERTISE

Sanger, Sharon
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7822-4301
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1459288114

Abstract Details

, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Management.
It is well known that corporate leaders, who acquire expertise by honing their intuition and expanding their knowledge through years of professional experience, are susceptible to a liability of expertise indicated by entrenched thinking and action. However, comparatively little is known about how leaders break free from this liability. This research seeks to better understand what leaders do to disrupt the liability of their expertise and enhance innovative decision making, by developing new knowledge in three areas. First, this research aims to understand the self-knowledge of entrenchment that organizational leaders experience. Second, this research discovers what organizational leaders do to break the cycle of entrenchment to innovate and lead their organizations effectively. Third, building on this discovery, I conduct an experiment with corporate leaders to examine how exposure to disruptive stimuli impacts innovative decision-making outcomes. This dissertation is a three-part research effort comprised of qualitative, quantitative and experimental studies in a corporate leadership context. Using a grounded study with data from corporate leaders in a single functional area, I identify five distinct types of entrenchment experiences that relate to different liabilities of expertise and find six broad disruption strategies that corporate leaders deliberately implement to cope with their experienced entrenchment. In a quantitative study, I develop and validate a multidimensional measure of different decision styles used by corporate leaders for strategic decisions related to new opportunities. Then, in a 3-group experimental design, I test the hypothesis that exposure to disruptive stimuli will enhance the innovative decision-making outcomes among corporate leaders. Executives are randomly divided into three groups, two of which are exposed to different disruptive stimuli, while the third group is a control condition, utilizing their own strategy. I utilized disruptive interventions delivered through a video treatment as the independent variable and innovativeness of strategic decision making as the dependent variable. These findings make a novel contribution to the study of entrenchment as a liability of expertise by uncovering disruptive stimuli that are effective in overcoming this liability and result in enhanced strategic decision making in certain task situations. Identifying high-potential innovative ideas remains one of a corporate leader’s most important strategic roles. This research uncovers new insights toward how leaders can improve their own thinking and strategic decision-making capacity
Jagdip Singh (Committee Chair)
Kalle Lyytinen (Committee Member)
Erik Dane (Committee Member)
Christine Moorman (Committee Member)
168 p.
Management
expertise; entrenchment; disruptive strategies; innovation; corporate leadership; strategic decision making

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Sanger, S. (2016). DELIBERATE DISRUPTION: HOW CORPORATE LEADERS BREAK THE LIABILITY OF EXPERTISE [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1459288114

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Sanger, Sharon. DELIBERATE DISRUPTION: HOW CORPORATE LEADERS BREAK THE LIABILITY OF EXPERTISE . 2016. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1459288114.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Sanger, Sharon. "DELIBERATE DISRUPTION: HOW CORPORATE LEADERS BREAK THE LIABILITY OF EXPERTISE ." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1459288114

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1459288114
323
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This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.