# Attention Is Attention: Preserving Ontological Integrity in Organizational Research Exploring the existing potential of attention rather than expanding its boundaries - **Source:** [Journal of Management Studies](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14676486) - **Published:** 2026-07-20 - **Topic:** [Leadership](https://brifing.si/c/leadership) - **Original article:** - **On Brifing:** https://brifing.si/s/69eef90c-6800-4541-8c37-0fba1e43c0a6 ## The Organizational Role of Attention The attention-based view of the firm is a key theoretical tool explaining how organizations learn, adapt, and perform. However, recent approaches risk diluting attention's explanatory power. This article argues that attention must be preserved as a fundamental mechanism linking cognition, structure, and behavior. ## The Threat to Ontological Integrity Efforts to redefine attention as 'crescive' risk collapsing causal explanations into phenomenological descriptions. The paper clarifies the ontological attributes inherent in attention's definition and why preserving them is critical for robust organizational research. ## Gaps in the Literature Many perceived limitations of the attention-based view actually stem from the field's failure to fully exploit the ontological potential within attention's definition. The article focuses on two major gaps: limited normative theorizing and insufficient theorization of situations. ## Research Agendas The paper proposes three key research agendas: developing attention patterns that manage scarcity, revealing the costs of selective attention, and designing information environments that condition returns on attention. These agendas aim to advance attention theory while preserving its ontological core. ## The Power of Attention Attention's enduring power lies not in expanding its boundaries but in fully leveraging its inherent scarcity, selectivity, and situatedness. This approach promises stronger theoretical and practical outcomes in organizational research. ## Conclusion and Implications This article demonstrates that preserving the attention-based view's integrity can yield deeper and more effective explanations in organizational research. By maintaining attention's ontological core, significant theoretical and practical advancements can be achieved. ## Sources covering this story - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joms.70140?af=R — --- _Summary written by Brifing from the original reporting. Copyright in the original article belongs to its publisher; read the full piece at the link above._