In this paper, we extend the attention-based view of the firm (ABV), by theorizing the role of ‘vocabularies’ for organizational attention allocation. At its core, ABV theorizes organizational moves, shaped by the distribution of limited attention to a repertoire of issues and appropriate answers. This occurs through different attentional varieties comprised of the setting of top-down priorities (attentional perspective), the selection of issues and appropriate answers (attentional selection) and the sustained and situated devotion of effort to them (attentional engagement). We propose that the use of ‘vocabularies’ constitutes a fundamental mechanism that underpins these attentional varieties and because of that, provides new explanatory means to theorize organizational moves and adaptation. We differentiate between different attentional properties of vocabularies (indexing of issues and coordination of answers) and the attentional functionality of vocabularies (embedded versus emergent) as foundation of our theorizing. We use two-pronged approach to temporally link the attentional varieties and theorize how this linkage translates into different organizational moves. Thereby, we provide a more nuanced understanding why organizational moves align with changing environments or fail to do so.
