题目：Organizations'Aspiration Determination during Environmental Jolts: The Role of Opportunity and Threat Orientation 

主讲人： Lingli Luo (UNSW Business School)

时间：2018年10月12日（周五） 9:30-11:30

地点：武东路100号上海财经大学中欧平台大楼106室

摘要：

Organizational aspiration determination (also referred to as aspiration adaptation, goal setting) has long been discussed in conventional behavioral theory and has been widely used in subsequent empirical research. However, prior work is largely limited to the context of stable or incrementally changing environments and over-constrains the role of managerial cognition in the process of aspiration determination. Extending the literature on behavioral aspirations, this investigation addresses two questions: first, whether the three reference points proposed by behavioral theory are salient aspiration antecedents during environmental jolts; second, (conditional on the first) how an organization’s opportunity and threat orientation during environmental jolts shape its attention allocation among the three reference points when determining aspirations. Using a sample of U.S. public firms during the 2007-2009 global financial crisis, we find that the three reference points are still significant determinants of organizations’ aspiration levels during a jolt. Further, whilst more opportunity-oriented organizations focus more attention on the past performance of their social reference group and less attention on their own past performance, more threat- oriented organizations focus less attention on their historical aspiration and more attention on their own past performance. Our work has important implications for theory and for decision makers responsible for setting organizational goals.