The Management of Strategic Time Horizons within Biotechnology Firms

Abstract

Strategic time horizons are an important but neglected area of research in the strategic management literature. Using inductive methods, the authors attempted to explore and develop the concept of strategic time horizons as well as build a theory of their antecedents and effects. In four of the eight biotechnology firms studied, they found that executives managed their strategic investments as a diverse portfolio of time horizons. Overall, the time horizon diversity (operationalized as the average length and standard deviation of the time horizons in the portfolio of strategic investments) required relatively complex cognitive structures on the part of the dominant coalition. The CEO's technical awareness, the dominant coalition's locus of control, and strategic issue array size were found to be antecedents of the firm's time horizon diversity. Finally, time horizon diversity was found to be associated with superior financial performance.