SELLING ISSUES TO TOP MANAGEMENT

• 成果类型: Review
• 署名作者: DUTTON, JE; ASHFORD, SJ
• 刊物名称: ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0363-7425
• DOI: 10.2307/258903
• 发表日期: 1993
• 页码: 397-428
• 关键词: ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEM FORMULATION; SOCIAL-PROBLEMS; STRATEGIC DECISIONS; INFLUENCE TACTICS; MIDDLE MANAGERS; PROCESS MODEL; environments; executives; cognition; BEHAVIOR

摘要

The time and attention of top management in an organization are critical, but limited, resources. This article develops insights on issue selling as a process that is central to explaining how and where top management allocates its time and attention. We see issue selling as a critical activity in the early stages of organizational decision-making processes. We first clarify the value of understanding issue selling at the individual and organizational levels and from both symbolic and instrumental perspectives. We then develop a framework for describing and studying issue selling in organizations that draws on three different theoretical perspectives: issue selling as upward influence, issue selling as claiming behaviors, and issue selling as impression management. We use the different perspectives to develop a set of testable research propositions. The article concludes with a discussion of practical and theoretical implications of the issue-selling framework.