Strategic issue agendas and firm performance: A cognitive load perspective

This study develops a more fine-grained understanding of the ways in which decision-makers' attention capacity limitations to attend to multiple issues shape organizations' strategic adaptation in the context of a major industry disruption. We argue that taking decision-makers' attention capacity limitations for granted may have limited our ability to understand how context factors shape executives' load dynamics which both enable and constrain organizations' strategic transformation. The paper introduces a cognitive load perspective to predict variation in strategic adaptation. We use qualitative and quantitative data in the context of Swiss private banks' adaptation to the regulatory, technological, macroeconomic, and globalization issues and discuss implications for our understanding of attention capacity limitations, of the characteristics and impact of strategic issues and agendas on organizational transformation.