Influence of exogenous phenomena on strategic behavior and organizational culture: An empirical analysis

External shocks, negative conjuncture, periods of crisis are known to often constitute turning points for enterprises. On the one hand, managers urge to revise their business model, in order to adapt it to the changes of the external environment and of the competitive scenario. On the other hand, exogenous shocks usually affect collaboration with other players on the market. Such strategies as outsourcing, consortia, joint-ventures, during a crisis, can be used to face the lower financial resources available for the enterprises. Though, if the shock is subtle, sometimes enterprises don't promptly react, due to distorted or delayed human perception. In this paper we show, by means of a computational model, that even a small percentage of slow-reacting (or biased) enterprises can determine a sub-optimal aggregate behavior when facing a negative exogenous conjuncture. © 2010 IEEE.