The attention-based view posits that the realized strategy of the firm is defined based on the issues attended to by organizational decision-makers. Whereas earlier research has focused on the implications of an organizational actor attending to an object (i.e., a dyadic approach to attention), our paper seeks to extend understanding by theorizing how an individual might advance strategy emergence through joint attention processes (i.e., a triadic approach to attention). Building on cognitive psychology and social brokering theories, our paper outlines a microfoundational process through which the object of one individual’s attention transforms into a joint object of attention for a group of organizational members. By targeting the attention and relationships of other actors, organizational actors engage in processing triadic associations among self, another actor, and a joint object of attention. We suggest that an organizational actor might influence the attention of another individual to a specific issue or a third actor, and these agentic behaviors are supported by rhetorical tactics. Moreover, by increasing trust, normative commitment, and cognitive alignment among coattending individuals, joint attention contributes to the emergence of joint action, and the strategic agenda of the firm.
