The Three Minds of the Strategist: Toward an Agentic Perspective in Behavioral Strategy

By theorizing choice as an information and decision problem, behavioral strategy research has not considered fully the agentic capacities of strategists. We argue that agentic capacities are distinct from decision-making and information-processing capacities as they rest on temporally anchored engagements with the world through habit, imagination, and judgment. We propose that understanding agency as temporally anchored action capacities is particularly important for research in behavioral strategy, as strategic phenomena encompass accumulated experience and path-dependencies (the past), ongoing competitive, market, and organizational interactions and exchanges (the present), and plans, visions, and forecasts for the future (the future). We outline how strategic choice and agency involve cognitive engagement in the three time horizons through distinct cognitive capabilities and the organizational processes that support them.