Senders’ Bias: How Can Top Managers’ Communication Improve or Not Improve Strategy Implementation?

As environmental change accelerates and future uncertainty increases, implementation of strategy inherently involves continuous adjustment and modification. To meet the need for further research on the critical role of communication, this article contributes to the literature by examining the relationship between communication and strategy implementation. I propose that senders’ bias, which refers to the overestimation of the quality of communication (i.e., degree of sharing) with organizational members by senders (i.e., top managers), is a fundamental implementation problem. Thus, top managers’ perceived degree of communication with organizational members is expected to have limited effects on the degree of value sharing and resulting effectiveness of strategy implementation up to a certain threshold point. Additionally, I argue that the relationship between top managers’ perceived degree of communication and strategy implementation are moderated by the type of communication (i.e., whether storytelling is used in the communication), communication medium (i.e., the use of e-mails), and top managers’ openness to the voices of organizational members. The idea of senders’ bias should provide insights into why many organizations struggle with strategy implementation.