Abstract:

The mechanisms by which managers make sense of and adapt to changing environment that determines their strategic decisions has been of central importance to strategy and strategic management scholars at least since 1960s - Carnegie School’s contributions to a behavioural theory of the firm and psychological contribution from behavioural decision research. The cognition concept involves also the premises of the upper echelons theory (rooted in the Carnegie thought). It also reveals the assumptions of co-evolution in terms of behavioural and evolutionary approaches in strategic management. Consequently, on one hand the environmental external selection forces affect companies and their managers. On the other hand, managers affect the environment by means of managerial intervention. Admittedly, the co-evolution perspective is under common agreement that it is potentially possible to integrate environmental selection and adaptation illusive chasm (e.g. Baum and Korn, 1999; Baum and Singh, 1994; Levinthal, 1997; Lewin and Volberda, 1999).