Shared cognition in top management teams: implications for new venture performance

This paper presents a study of two samples of new venture top management te ams from the inc. 500. The research poses that shared strategic cognition i s the outcome of group processes that occur during the development of strat egy. Shared cognition in top management teams (TMTs) is the extent to which those mental models about strategy are shared. A theoretical frame is deve loped that links shared strategic cognition to group process and new ventur e performance. The results indicate that the group processes leading to the development of shared strategic cognition are more important than the outc ome of shared strategic cognition in terms of predicting organizational per formance. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.