Bridging strategic decision making and top management team networks: The influence of boundary spanning activities

Top management team members play the role of boundary spanners in organizations, in that they are involved in managing their divisions and making strategic decisions internally, and at the same time have ties with entities external to the organization. Our paper provides a theoretical framework to understand how their engagement in several boundary spanning activities in these external networks influences strategic decision-making processes and effectiveness in the top management teams of their focal organization. We propose that their informational activities influences both rationality and political behavior in the decision making process, and that their relational activities moderates the relationship between the process characteristics and strategic decision-making effectiveness.