Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Strategic decision-making'

Wie beeinflusst das gleichzeitige Auftreten von strategischer und umfeldbedingter Unsicherheit das Entscheidungsverhalten? Unterscheiden sich Unternehmer in dieser Hinsicht von Anderen? Die vorliegende Dissertation behandelt diese Fragen und untersucht das Koordinationsverhalten bei dualer Unsicherheit. In vier ökonomischen Experimenten wird das Entscheidungsverhalten von Unternehmern und Nicht-Unternehmern vergleichend analysiert. Die betrachteten Entscheidungssituationen beinhalten Investitionsentscheidungen in Forschung und Entwicklung sowie verschiedene Aspekte des Wettbewerbs und von Markteintrittsentscheidungen.
How do people make decisions when simultaneously facing strategic and environmental uncertainty? Do entrepreneurs differ from others in this regards? This dissertation addresses these questions by investigating coordination behavior under dual uncertainty. Four economic experiments have been conducted comparing the behavior of entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs in settings that contain investment decisions into research and development and different aspects of competition and market entry decisions.

A laboratory study of the factors of that influence the propensity of organisations to copy the strategic decisions of others, based around the BRANDMAPS simulation, investigated the effects of contingencies relating to the environment, the decision and the firm itself, in the absence of binding resource constraints and legal pressures. The proportion of isomorphic decisions diminished with industry age: isomorphic behaviour did not become institutionalised. It was positively associated with industry dynamism - isomorphism was possibly used for risk reduction. No association with industry concentration was found: field structuration did not affect isomorphic behaviour. Pressures to imitate their peers, as perceived by participants, appeared unrelated to firms' performance or socio-cultural characteristics other than team diversity. Isomorphic behaviour was unrelated to isomorphic pressures, suggesting that unconscious rationality in managerial behaviour. Knowledge of opponents' decisions was associated with isomorphic behaviour, indicating that isomorphism was not simply a response to the task environment. However, the association was positive for some decisions and negative for others, inconsistent with common explanations of isomorphism as deriving from a desire for legitimation. Rather, isomorphic behaviour results from managers making efficient use of available information on competitors' practices. Combinatorially complex bundles of decisions were not isomorphic between firms that had taken similar individual decisions. There was no evidence of an "iron cage" constraining them to become more similar. Isomorphism between firms is not necessarily linked to institutionalisation or stimulated by causes - notably legitimation - suggested by institutional theory. A model of isomorphic behaviour in firms is proposed, based on the perceived value of the practice being copied, the nature of the decision, contingent properties of the business environment and of the organisational field and the situation and internal properties of the firm. The implications for managerial praxis are explored.

Strategic decision making is fundamental since strategic decisions affect the long-term health of the organization. Strategy process research to date has been mainly concerned with characterising and explaining the nature of individual strategic decision making processes. A number of researchers are calling for more research on the potential connectedness between strategic decisions. In response, this thesis contributes to the strategic decision making literature by investigating the connectedness between strategic decision making processes. It focuses on precursive connections and tracks decisions backwards and forwards to identify potential connections. Both researchers and practitioners believe that the success and failure of prior decisions affect subsequent decisions. Hence, this research investigates decision performance as a potential influence on connectedness. The research is qualitative and a multiple embedded case study approach was chosen, examining decision making processes in two organizations in the UK. Data collection consisted mainly of in-depth interviews with executives and senior management but also included archival data. Main findings indicate that decision makers tend to transfer their knowledge and experience from one decision process to the next and thereby create a connection between strategic decisions. The connections can be characterised in terms of exploration and exploitation tendencies. Positive perceptions about a decision’s performance are related to the exploitation of existing practices, while negative perceptions prompt an exploration of new routines. The findings also show that informants’ perceptions about decision performance are highly subjective. The concept of cognitive decision styles provides plausible explanations arguing that individuals hold personal preferences when it comes to judging and perceiving information and their evaluations of strategic decisions cohere with these. Finally, this research suggests that decisions are linked primarily through individual agency. This reinforces the importance of the individual in strategic decision making processes, and consequently, the emphasis in this work is to argue that only by a deep understanding of individual action (and practice) is it possible to understand decision processes.

The need for sustainable transportation solutions is urgent as the demand for mobility of goods and people is expected to multiply in the upcoming decades. One promising solution is truck platooning, which shows great potential in reducing the fuel consumption and operational costs of trucks.  In order to utilize the benefits of truck platooning to the fullest, trucks with different routes in a transportation network need coordination to efficiently meet and form platoons. This thesis addresses platoon coordination when trucks form  platoons at hubs, where some trucks need to wait for others in order to meet, and there is a reward for platooning and a cost for waiting. Three contributions on the topic platoon coordination are presented in this thesis. In the first contribution, we consider platoon coordination among trucks that have pre-defined routes in a network of hubs, and the travel times are either deterministic or stochastic. The trucks are owned by competing transportation companies, and each truck decides on its waiting times at hubs in order to optimize its own operational cost. We consider a group of trucks to form a platoon if it departs from a hub and enters the road at the same time. The strategic interaction among trucks when they coordinate for platooning is modeled by non-cooperative game theory, and the Nash equilibrium is considered as the solution concept when the trucks make their decisions at the beginning of their journeys. In case of stochastic travel times, we also develop feedback-based solutions wherein trucks repeatedly update their decisions. We show in a simulation study of the Swedish transportation network that the feedback-based solutions achieve platooning rates up to 60 %. In the second contribution, we propose models for sharing the platooning profit among platoon members. The platooning benefit is not equal for all trucks in a platoon; typically, the lead truck benefits less than its followers. The incentive for transportation companies to cooperate in platooning may be low unless the profit is shared. We formulate platoon coordination games based on profit-sharing models, and in a simulation of a single hub, the outcomes of the platoon coordination games are evaluated. The evaluation shows that the total profit achieved when the trucks aim to maximize their own profits, but the platooning benefit is evened out among platoon members, is nearly as high as when each truck aims to maximize the total profit in the platooning system.  In the last contribution, we study a problem where trucks arrive to a hub according to a stochastic arrival process. The trucks do not share a priori information about their arrivals; this may be sensitive information to share with others. A coordinator decides, based on the statistical distribution of arrivals, when to release the trucks at the hub in the form of a platoon. Under the assumption that the arrivals are independent and identically distributed, we show that it is optimal to release the trucks at the hub when the number of trucks exceeds a certain threshold. This contribution shows that simple and dynamic coordination approaches can obtain a high profit from platooning, even under high uncertainty and limited a priori information.
Under de kommande decennierna förväntas efterfrågan på transport av varor och passagerare mångfaldigas, vilket innebär att behovet av hållbara transportlösningar är brådskande. En lovande lösning är konvojkörning, som visar stor potential att minska bränsleförbrukningen och driftskostnaderna för lastbilar. För att utnyttja fördelarna med konvojkörning till fullo behöver lastbilar koordineras för att effektivt mötas och bilda konvojer. Den här avhandlingen behandlar koordinering av lastbilar som kan bilda konvojer på transporthubbar, där vissa lastbilar måste vänta på andra lastbilar för att bilda konvojer, och det finns en belöning för konvojkörning och en kostnad för att vänta. Tre bidrag som behandlar konvojkoordinering presenteras i den här avhandlingen. Det första bidraget behandlar koordinering av lastbilar med förutbestämda rutter i ett transportnätverk med deterministiska eller stokastiska restider. Lastbilarna ägs av konkurrerande transportföretag, och varje lastbil beslutar om sina väntetider på hubbarna längs med sin rutt för att optimera sin driftskostnad. Vi antar att lastbilar bildar en konvoj om de avgår från en hubb och kör in på vägen samtidigt. Den strategiska interaktionen mellan lastbilar när de koordinerar för konvojbildning modelleras med icke-kooperativ spelteori, och vi betraktar Nashjämvikt som lösningskoncept när lastbilarna beslutar om sina väntetider i början av sina resor. I fallet med stokastiska restider utvecklar vi även lösningar där lastbilarna tillåts uppdatera sina väntetider längs med sina resor. I en simuleringsstudie över det svenska transportnätverket visas att när lastbilarna tillåts uppdatera sina väntetider uppnås en konjovkörningsgrad på 60%. I det andra bidraget utreds modeller för att dela på vinsten från konvojkörning. Fördelarna med konvojkörning är inte lika för alla lastbilar i en konvoj; vanligtvis är fördelen större för följarlastbilarna än för ledarlastbilen. Således kan incitamenten för transportföretag att samarbeta i form av konvojkörning vara låga om inte vinsterna från konvojkörning delas. Baserat på vinstdelningsmodeller formulerar vi konvojkoordineringsspel. I en simulering av en transporthubb utvärderar vi utfallet från konvojkoordinationsspelen. Det visar sig att den totala vinsten som uppnås när lastbilarna försöker maximera sina egna vinster, men vinsten från konvojkörning jämnas ut helt bland konvojmedlemmar, är nästan lika hög som när varje lastbil försöker att maximera den totala vinsten i systemet. I det sista bidraget studeras ett koordineringsproblem där lastbilar anländer till en transporthubb enligt en stokastisk ankomstprocess. Lastbilarna delar inte förhandsinformation om sina ankomster; detta kan vara känslig information att dela. En koordinator bestämmer, baserat på den statistiska sannolikhetsfördelningen av ankomster, när lastbilarna på transporthubben ska släppas iväg i form av en konvoj. Under antagandet att ankomsterna är statistiskt oberoende och likafördelade, visar vi att det är optimalt att släppa iväg lastbilarna från transporthubben i form av en konvoj när antalet lastbilar överskrider en viss tröskel. Detta bidrag visar att enkla och dynamiska koordineringsmetoder kan erhålla en hög vinst från konvojkörning, även under hög osäkerhet och begränsad förhandsinformation.

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QC 20200609

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2005.
Thesis research directed by: Communication. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

This thesis aims at developing a better understanding of unstructured strategic decision making processes and the conditions for achieving successful decision outcomes. Specifically it focuses on the processes used to make CRE (Corporate Real Estate) decisions. The starting point for this thesis is that our knowledge of such processes is incomplete. A comprehensive study of the most recent CRE literature together with Behavioural Organization Theory has provided a research framework for the exploration of CRE recommended =best practice‘, and of how organizational variables impact on and shape these practices. To reveal the fundamental differences between CRE decision-making in practice and the prescriptive =best practice‘ advocated in the CRE literature, a study of seven Italian management consulting firms was undertaken addressing the aspects of content and process of decisions. This thesis makes its primary contribution by identifying the importance and difficulty of finding the right balance between problem complexity, process richness and cohesion to ensure a decision-making process that is sufficiently rich and yet quick enough to deliver a prompt outcome. While doing so, this research also provides more empirical evidence to some of the most established theories of decision-making while reinterpreting their mono-dimensional arguments in a multi-dimensional model of successful decision-making.

En réponse à une demande institutionnelle, réorientée par les conclusions d'une étude exploratoire et confirmée par une revue de littérature, cette thèse cherche à répondre à la question de recherche suivante : comment rendre possible la prise de décision d'adopter une veille stratégique (VS) ? Ce travail suit un modèle multipapier dans lequel chaque étude contribue à répondre à la question de recherche principale. Notre première étude (chapitre 2) nous a permis de comprendre que les pressions institutionnelles ont une influence sur la décision mentale d'adopter ou pas une VS. Les chapitres 3 et 4 ont contribué à essayer et à améliorer une méthode de ciblage permettant d'identifier les besoins en information pour la VS. En outre, ces améliorations ont permis l'introduction de deux nouveaux concepts pour aider les praticiens à identifier leurs priorités pour faire de la VS. Les deux études sont fortement liées. Le troisième chapitre contribue à identifier les parties prenantes et les thèmes susceptibles de représenter les besoins d'information des gestionnaires dans un contexte spécifique. Le chapitre 4 reprend ces éléments et les combine avec des considérations temporelles et une autoévaluation de capacité d'anticipation dans un système type salle de réunion avec le but de faciliter le ciblage et d'identifier les priorités pour la VS. Dans le chapitre 5, nous avons étudié les interactions dans les réunions collectives de ciblage afin de comprendre la contribution de ces activités au développement de la capacité d'absorption organisationnelle. Nos travaux ont permis d'identifier les thèmes à négocier afin de faciliter l'activité de ciblage et de produire des résultats qui représentent les besoins d'information de l'organisation dans son ensemble. Enfin, nous présentons nos contributions théoriques, à la recherche, et à la pratique
This dissertation addresses the question of how to enable decision-making to adopt Strategic Scanning (S.Scan). This work was motivated by an institutional request, reoriented by the findings from our exploratory study and supported by literature lack. This document follows a multi-paper model in which each connected study contributes to answer our main research inquiry. Our first study, Chapter 2, allowed us to understand that institutional pressures have an influence into the mental adoption of S.Scan. Chapter 3 and 4 focus into trial and allow the improvement of Target method aiding the identification of information needs for S.Scan. In addition, these improvements let to introduce two new concepts to S.Scan, helping practitioners identify their scan priorities. These studies are strongly linked, on one side, Chapter 3 contributes to identify the stakeholders and topics likely to represent information needs for managers in a particular context; on the other side, Chapter 4 combines the previous information with temporal considerations and a self-perceived anticipatory capacity within a meeting room system with the aim to facilitate S.Scan targeting and identifying scan priorities. In Chapter 5, we studied the interactions in collective targeting meetings in order to understand the contributions of such activities to develop organizational absorptive capacity. This work allowed the understanding of the main themes to be negotiated in order to ease the activity of targeting and to produce results, which represent the information needs of the organization as a whole. Finally, we present our: theoretical, research, and practice contributions

As organisations find themselves in an environment of uncertainty and increased levels of competition, the rapid changes in technology has resulted in the availability of more data than ever before. The advent of big data has provided firms with the opportunity to take advantage of the increased volume, variety, velocity and veracity of data, allowing for increased levels of innovation, proactivity and risk-taking and a culture of evidencebased decision-making. Although, the challenge remains that organisations are still struggling to successfully extract value from their data. This research aimed to understand if organisations can become more entrepreneurial and achieve a culture of evidence-based decisionmaking by leveraging big data for strategic decision-making. A quantitative study was used to measure the relationship between big data, evidence-based decision-making and entrepreneurial orientation using multivariate data analysis. The results reported statistically significant positive correlations between big data and both evidence-based decision-making and entrepreneurial orientation. Furthermore, big data skills was reported as a significant predictor of both entrepreneurial orientation and evidence-based decision-making. These findings provide empirical evidence and guidance for both academics and business practitioners on the importance of skills and how organisations can leverage big data to become more entrepreneurial and drive an evidence-based decision-making culture.
Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2017.
nk2018
Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)
MBA
Unrestricted

Strategic decision making has been a widely covered topic in a number of fields. While some researchers have concentrated on the"content" of strategic decisions, others have looked at the"process" of strategic decision making. A review of recent strategy-related literature shows that researchers disagree not only on how strategic decisions are made, but what strategic decisions are as well. In an attempt to understand how strategic decisions are made in manufacturing organizations, this study builds on data collected from strategy-related literature and from interviews with practicing managers. These data were used to develop a conceptual model showing the variables affecting strategic decisions and the relationships between these variables. In addition to the conceptual model, this study makes recommendations to practicing managers in manufacturing organizations on how the outcome of strategic decisions can be improved. Finally, based on the results obtained in this study, recommendations for future research in strategic decision making are provided.
Master of Science

The need for software tools to support decision-making relating to biomanufacture is becoming increasingly critical in order to accelerate the time-to-market and reduce costs. The main objective of this thesis is the design and implementation of a decision-support tool that integrates both the business and process perspectives of biopharmaceutical manufacture to aid the evaluation of manufacturing alternatives. The tool, designated BioPharmKit, was built on the platform of the simulation package Extend Industrial Suite (Imagine That Inc., San Jose, USA). As an illustration, the tool was used to evaluate manufacturing alternatives for the production of monoclonal antibodies derived from mammalian-based processes. The functionalities of such a tool to model cost summation, perform mass balance calculations, simulate resource handling, and incorporate uncertainties are demonstrated via two industrial-related case studies. The first case study was based upon the assessment of pooling strategies in perfusion culture of mammalian cells to deliver a therapeutic protein for commercial use. The analysis in this study addressed the trade-offs between investing in a plant with a smaller downstream process (DSP) capacity and employing more frequent pooling of the broth for purification or opting for a plant with a larger DSP capacity and less frequent pooling of broth. The feasibility of each manufacturing option was evaluated based on the annual throughput, resource utilisation profiles and cost of goods per gram (COG/g). Project appraisal was based on expected output values and the likelihood of achieving or exceeding critical threshold indicators generated using Monte Carlo simulations. Critical drivers that may affect the decision were identified through scenario analyses to improve the robustness of the decision-making process. In the second case study, the decision-support tool developed was employed to evaluate the economic feasibility of fed-batch and perfusion cultures. The trade-offs between the relative simplicity and high titres of fed-batch systems and the high productivity but greater complexity of perfusion processes were analysed. The study aimed to investigate the relative economics of the two operational modes by examining key performance metrics such as the COG/g and the net present value (NPV). Another major objective of this study was to compare the relative usefulness and limitations of the decision tree and Monte Carlo simulations, which are typical tools used for risk analysis to aid decision-making in situations subject to uncertainty. Although the decision tree analysis provided a simple approach for decision-making based on the expected values of performance metrics, it does not explicitly consider the underlying uncertainty in each contributory estimate. The Monte Carlo simulation method was more time-consuming but provided a more complete estimation of process uncertainties subject to fluctuating product titres and process yields. The examples illustrate the benefits of using the tool to investigate the cost effectiveness of different manufacturing alternatives and may assist the process of decision-making in the context of both business and process drivers. It is envisaged that such a tool might be employed in early process development, hence contributing to transparent planning and project management decisions.

Strategic sourcing is one of the major decision making areas in Supply Chain Management (SCM) that provides competitive advantage to companies around the world. This research provides a conceptual understanding of the strategic sourcing decision making process when considering SCM issues. The research started with an understanding of the strategic sourcing decision environments captured from semi structured interviews and empirical studies.

1.1 Purpose of the study: The purpose of this research was to explain the principles that should be adopted when developing data visualisations for effective strategic decision making. 1.1.1 Main problem statement: Big data is produced at exponential rates and organisational executives may not possess the appropriate skill or knowledge to consume it for rigorous and timely strategic decision-making (Li, Tiwari, Alcock, & Bermell-Garcia, 2016; Marshall & De la Harpe, 2009; McNeely & Hahm, 2014). 1.1.2 Sub-problems: Organisational executives, including Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and Chief Operating Officers (COOs) possess unique and differing characteristics including education, IT skill, goals and experiences impacting on his/her strategic decision-making ability (Campbell, Chang, & Hosseinian-Far, 2015; Clayton, 2013; Krotov, 2015; Montibeller & Winterfeldt, 2015; Toker, Conati, Steichen, & Carenini, 2013; Xu, 2014). Furthermore, data visualisations are often not "fit-forpurpose", meaning they do not consistently or adequately guide executive strategic decision-making for organisational success (Nevo, Nevo, Kumar, Braasch, & Mathews, 2015). Finally, data visualisation development currently faces challenges, including resolving the interaction between data and human intuition, as well as the incorporation of big data to derive competitive advantage (Goes, 2014; Moorthy et al., 2015; Teras & Raghunathan, 2015). 1.1.3 Research Questions: Based on the challenges identified in section 1.1.1 and 1.1.2, the researcher has identified 3 research questions. RQ1: What do individual organisational executives value and use in data and data visualisation for strategic decision-making purposes? RQ2: How does data visualisation impact on an executive's ability to use and digest relevant information, including on his/her decision-making speed and confidence? RQ3: What elements should data analysts consider when developing data visualisations? 1.2 Rationale: The study will provide guidance to data analysts on how to develop and rethink their data visualisation methods, based on responses from organisational executives tasked with strategic decision-making. By performing this study, data analysts and executives will both benefit, as data analysts will gain knowledge and understanding of what executives value and use in data visualisations, while executives will have a platform to raise their requirements, improving the effectiveness of data visualisations for strategic decision-making. 1.3 Research Method: Qualitative research was the research method used in this research study. Qualitative research could be described as using words rather than precise measurements or calculations when performing data collection and analysis and uses methods of observation, human experiences and inquiry to explain the results of a study (Bryman, 2015; Myers, 2013). Its importance in social science research has increased, as there is a need to further understand the connection of the research study to people's emotions, culture and experiences (Creswell, 2013; Lub, 2015). This supports the ontological view of the researcher, which is an interpretivist's view (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2015; Ormston, Spencer, Barnard, & Snape, 2014). The epistemology was interpretivism, as the researcher interviewed executives and data analysts (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2015; Ritchie, Lewis, Nicholls, & Ormston, 2013). Furthermore, literature relating to decision-making supported the researcher's interpretivist view, as people generally make decisions based on what they know at the time (Betsch & Haberstroh, 2014). Therefore, the researcher cannot separate the participant from his/her views (Dhochak & Sharma, 2016).The population for this research comprised of 13 executives tasked with strategic decision-making, as well as 4 data analysts who are either internal (permanent employees) or external (consultants) of the organisation within the private sector. 1.4 Conclusion: RQ1: What do individual organisational executives value and use in data and data visualisation for strategic decision-making purposes? Based upon the findings, to answer RQ1, organisational executives must first be clear on the value of the decision. No benefit will be derived from data visualisation if the decision lacks value. The executives also stressed the importance of understanding how data relevancy was identified, based on the premise used by the data visualisation developers. Executives also value source data accuracy and preventing a one-dimensional view by only incorporating data from one source. Hence the value of dynamism, or differing data angles, is important. In terms of the value in data visualisation, it must provide simplicity, clarity, intuitiveness, insightfulness, gap, pattern and trending capability in a collaboration enabling manner, supporting the requirements and decision objectives of the executive. However, an additional finding also identified the importance of the executive's knowledge of the topic at hand and having some familiarity of the topic. Finally, the presenter of the visualisation must also provide a guiding force to assist the executive in reaching a final decision, but not actually formulate the decision for the executive. RQ2: How does data visualisation impact on an executive's ability to use and digest relevant information, including on his/her decision-making speed and confidence? Based on the findings, to answer RQ2, themes of consumption, speed and confidence can be used. However; the final themes of use and trust overlap the initial 3 theme. Consumption is impacted by the data visualisation's ability to talk to the objective of the decision and the ability of the technology used to map the mental model and thinking processes of the decision-maker. Furthermore, data visualisations must not only identify the best decision, but also help the executive to define actionable steps to meet the goal of the decision. Executives appreciate the knowledge and skill of peers and prefer an open approach to decision-making, provided that each inclusion is to the benefit of the organisation as a whole. Benchmark statistics from similar industries also add to the consumption factor. Speed was only defined in terms of the data visualisation design, including the use of contrasting elements, such as colour, to highlight anomalies and areas of interest with greater speed. Furthermore, tolerance limits can also assist the executive in identifying where thresholds have been surpassed, or where areas of underperformance have occurred, focussing on problem areas within the organisation. Finally, confidence is not only impacted by the data visualisation itself but is also affected by the executive's knowledge of the decision and the factors affecting the decision, the ability of the data visualisation presenter to understand, guide and add value to the decision process, the accuracy and integrity of the data presented, the familiarity of the technology used to present the data visualisation and the ability of the data visualisation to enable explorative and collaborative methods for decision-making. RQ3: What elements should data analysts consider when developing data visualisations? Based on the findings, to answer RQ3, the trust theme identifies qualitative factors, relating to the presenter. The value, consumption and confidence themes all point to the relevance of having an open and collaborative organisational culture that enables the effective use of data visualisation. Collaboration brings individuals together and the power of knowledgeable individuals can enhance the final decision. In terms of the presenter, his/her organisational ranking, handling of complexity and multiple audience requirements, use of data in the data visualisation, ability to answer questions, his/her confidence and maturity, professionalism, delivery of the message when presenting, knowledge of the subject presented, understanding of the executive's objectives and data visualisation methodology, creation of a "WOW" factor and understanding the data journey are all important considerations.

Strategic decision-making is ubiquitous in everyday life. The analysis of game strategies has been a research theme in game theory for several decades since von Neumann and Morgenstern. Sophisticated models and analysis tools have been developed with wide applications in Economics, Management Science, Social Science and Computer Science, especially in the field of Artificial Intelligence. However, \much of game theory is about the question whether strategic equilibria exist", as Johan van Benthem, a world-leading logician and game-theorist, points out, \but there are hardly any explicit languages for defining, comparing, or combining strategies". Without such a facility it is challenging for computer scientists to build intelligent agents that are capable of strategic decision-making. In the last twenty years, logical approaches have been proposed to tackle this problem. Pioneering work includes Game Logics, Coalition Logic and Alternating-time Temporal Logic (ATL). These logics either provide facilities for expressing and combining games or offer mechanisms for reasoning about strategic abilities of players. But none of them can solve the problem. The intrinsic difficulty in establishing such a logic is that reasoning about strategies requires combinations of temporal reasoning, counterfactual reasoning, reasoning about actions, preferences and knowledge, as well as reasoning about multi-agent interactions and coalitional abilities. More recently, a few new logical formalisms have been proposed by extending ATL with strategy variables in order to express strategies explicitly. However, most of these logics tend to have high computational complexity, because ATL introduces quantifications over strategies (functions), which leaves little hope of building any tractable inference system based on such a logic. This thesis takes up the challenge by using a bottom-up approach in order to create a balance between expressive power and computational efficiency. Instead of starting with a highly complicated logic, we propose a set of logical frameworks based on a simple and practical logical language, called Game Description Language (GDL), which has been used as an official language for General Game Playing (GGP) since 2005. To represent game strategies, we extend GDL with two binary prioritized connectives for combining actions in terms of their priorities specified by these connectives, and provide it with a semantics based on the standard state transition model. To reason about the strategic abilities of players, we further extend the framework with coalition operators from ATL for specifying the strategic abilities of players. More importantly, a unified semantics is provided for both GDL- and ATL- formulas, which allows us to verify and reason about game strategies. Interestingly, the framework can be used to formalize the fundamental game-playing principles and formally derive two well-known results on two-player games: Weak Determinacy and Zermelo's Theorem. We also show that the model-checking problem of the logic is not worse than that of ATL*, an extension of ATL. To deal with imperfect information games, we extend GDL with the standard epistemic operators and provide it with a semantics based on the epistemic state transition model. The language allows us to specify an imperfect information game and formalize its epistemic properties. Meanwhile, the framework allows us to reason about players' own as well as other players' knowledge during game playing. Most importantly, the logic has a moderate computational complexity, which makes it significantly different from similar existing frameworks. To investigate the interplay between knowledge shared by a group of players and its coalitional abilities, we provide a variant of semantics for ATL with imperfect information. The relation between knowledge sharing and coalitional abilities is investigated through the interplay of epistemic and coalition modalities. Moreover, this semantics is able to preserve the desirable properties of coalitional abilities. To deal with collective decision-making, we apply the approach of combining actions via their priorities for collective choice. We extend propositional logic with the prioritized connective for modelling reason-based individual and collective choices. Not only individual preferences but also aggregation rules can be expressed within this logic. A model-checking algorithm for this logic is thus developed to automatically generate individual and collective choices. In many real-world situations, a group making collective judgments may assign individual members or subgroups different priorities to determine the collective judgment. We design an aggregation rule based on the priorities of individuals so as to investigate how the judgment from each individual affects group judgment in a hierarchical environment. We also show that this rule satisfies a set of plausible conditions and has a tractable computational complexity.

Cette thèse aborde le problème du raisonnement stratégique. Le raisonnement stratégique est un thème de recherches existant depuis e nombreuses années en théorie des jeux. Toutefois, celui-ci a le plus souvent pour objet de déterminer si des équilibres stratégiques existent sans détailler la définition en elle-même de ces stratégies. La construction d'agents artificiels capable de raisonner stratégiquement implique de se poser la question de la représentation de ces stratégies afin que les agents puissent les construire, combiner, comparer et enfin et surtout exécuter. Cette thèse propose un ensemble de logiques pour le raisonnement stratégique et la prise de décision collective. Elle établit dans un premier temps un cadre unifiée pour la définition de jeux, la représentation de stratégies et le raisonnement sur celles-ci dans le contexte des jeux à information parfaite. Ce cadre est ensuite étendu pour prendre en compte les jeux à information imparfaite. Les relations entre les connaissances de groupe, le pouvoir des coalitions ainsi que le partage d'informations dans une coalition sont ensuite étudiés. Dans un dernier temps, est introduit une logique modale permettant de de raisonner sur les choix collectifs, cette logique permet de généraliser les approches logiques existantes pour l'agrégation de jugements. La complexité de ces différents cadres logiques est aussi étudiée et nous montrons que ces différents cadres offre un équilibre pertinent entre efficacité computationnelle et pouvoir d'expression
This thesis proposes a set of logics for modelling strategic reasoning and collective decision-making. It first establishes a unified logical framework for game specifications, strategy representation and strategic reasoning in perfect information games. Based on that, it proposes an epistemic extension to address imperfect information games. To investigate the interplay of group knowledge and coalitional abilities, it further models knowledge sharing within coalitions. Finally it introduces a modal logic for collective choice and generalizes the logic-based approach to judgment aggregation. The complexity analysis of these logics indicates that these frameworks make a good balance between expressive power and computational efficiency

The French and Dutch refusal to ratify the European Constitution in 2005 and the collapse of many East German businesses post-reunification; are just some examples of the hurdles integrating nations face. Integration of nations affects many economic factors such as public good allocation, trade, production, labour, consumption and even macro-economic policy instruments. Therefore, it is important to understand what motivates integration. Few scholars have broached the subject of the integration of nations (see Goyal and Staal (2004)), where size asymmetry and historical dependence are considered. Starting with Alesina and Spolaore (2003)'s Size of Nations symmetric framework, we attempt to do this with a two nation (asymmetric in size) location model. The key findings are that size differentials and the constitutional design (the identity of the decision maker) matters. In this thesis, we consider the social planner (government) and voters. The social planner maximizes social welfare for his own nation. Voting outcomes become non-trivial as it depends on the number of alternatives and the voting system. We categorize integration into two main forms. Full Integration is when the two nations fully integrate to form a new one, only one capital remains. Federated Integration is where the nations integrate but retain some form of sovereignty; this is represented by the retention of both capitals. Size difference matters when two nations chose to integrate. As the size difference between the two nations increase it becomes harder for integration to occur; nations would integrate if there is no size difference. The identity of the decision maker will affect the threshold on size.

The strategic decision making process (SDMP) is a major issue in organisations. It is part of the larger topic of strategic management and related to strategic planning. Achievement of strategic objectives outlined in the strategic plan of an organisation depends on the decisions taken through the process. Yet the literature shows that the concept of SDMP is not well understood and organisations find it difficult to develop and implement an SDMP, particularly Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The literature indicates that decisions are taken in organizations in different ways for example using intuition, data, collaboration and ad-hoc considerations. In addition contextual factors are argued to affect the SDMP although very little research has been conducted to explain how contextual factors affect SDMP they do in HEIs. Some examples of contextual factors namely decision process characteristics have been identified and discussed as part of the SDMP literature in industry. However, lack of knowledge about SDMP and how contextual factors influence SDMP is regarded as to be a major obstacle for HEIs in taking decisions and choosing the best alternative amongst available decisions. This research seeks to contribute to address this important issue. Whilst there are many strategic decision characteristics (contextual factors) identified in the literature, this research focuses on decision importance. The rationale for choosing decision importance was that there is always some concern in the minds of the decision makers in the HEIs on what constitutes an important decision. What is considered as important decision while the decision is being taken may prove to be less important after implementation if there is no clear understanding of how to assign importance to a decision. Even in the industrial sector, Elbanna and Child (2007) it has been argued that decision importance has not been studied well. Relying upon the theoretical model developed by Elbanna and Child and other arguments found in the literatue, this research argued that the SDMP is a combination of relationships between decision characteristics, SDMP characteristics and decision outcomes that are influenced by environmental factors. As far as environmental factors were concerned environmental uncertainty was chosen as an external environment factor while organisational performance was chosen as the internal contextual factor. These two factors were argued to moderate the relationship between SDMP characteristics and SDMP outcomes and theoretical support for this conceptualisation was taken from the model developed by Elbanna and Child. A research model was developed to address the research questions, and the aim of the study was “to examine the different decision specific characteristic, SDMP characteristic and SDMP process outcome variables and develop a relationship amongst them in the context of HEIs in a changing environment”. The research was conducted in the United States of America and data was gathered from faculty members involved in decision making at the department level and higher. A positivist epistemological and objective ontological stance was adopted and a deductive approach was used. The research model was tested using the data collected from 485 valid responses to a survey questionnaire. Linear regression was the primary analysis approach and supplemented by path analysis. Results from the regression analysis showed that decision importance exerts influence on decision effectiveness through the mediators, rationality in decision making, intuition and decentralization in decision making. However, the outcome of path analysis showed that only rationality in decision making and intuition are important while decentalisation was not found to be statistically significant. Similarly environmental factors exerted pressure only on the relationship between rationality in decision making and decision effectiveness. The contradicting SDMP factors rationality in decision making and intuition were both found to be necessary to SDMP in the HEI context. This research has contributed to knowledge in terms of establishing a relationship between decision importance and decision process effectiveness mediated by rationality in decision making and intuition and development of the model. Theoretically the findings of this research show that the modification imposed on the model developed by Elbanna and Child was found to be statistically significant and found support from the literature. Environmental factors affected the relationship between rationality in decision making and decision effectiveness. This research has provided a model that can be used to help decision makers in HEIs to implement SDMP practically in the organization, to guide the process towards more robust decisions. The findings of this research find application in supporting policy makers to increase the likelihood of more effective decisions so that the decisions taken more effective.

The “2/3 Beauty-contest” game is widely used to measure peoples strategic ability, but are quite abstract and numerical (Camerer, 2003). Based on research from Sternberg one may believe that people’s strategic ability will show better in a less abstract situation (Sternberg, 2004). A new game is invented to represent a more intuitive situation that will be compared to the beauty-contest game. We examined the correlation between the participant’s strategic ability and their negotiation ability and in experiments we tried to manipulate the participant’s beliefs about negotiation ability. As predicted, the participant’s strategic ability showed better off in the new and more intuitive decision-situation. The manipulating element in the experiment seems to have had an effect on the participant’s beliefs about negotiation. The two decision situations were together able to predict compatible negotiation ability. The results are discussed in relation to other similar research (Kray & Haselhuhn, 2007).

This study seeks to understand strategic oil company decision-making in the North Sea, focusing on company decisions to produce oil in the United Kingdom's Continental Shelf. The production of oil in the North Sea was extremely complex, with comparatively greater risk attached to key decisions than in other global areas of production. Arguably, like other businesses, oil companies wanted to minimise risks in order to maximise their returns. This thesis is a case study of this basic notion in action: how did oil companies make decisions faced with the complex business environment in the North Sea? The study's conceptual framework is developed from scholarly work on decisionmaking and strategy formulation, using three models: rational, incremental and interpretative to help in the understanding of North Sea decision-making. Part One of the study analyses the North Sea environment, including the legal and fiscal regimes, physical constraints and climatic conditions, identifying the roles played by these outside influences in the decision-making process. Part Two of the study tests this 'theoretical' view of the North Sea environment and company-decision-making discussed in Part One, exploring practical company experience further in a semi-structured interview survey of oil company decision-makers. The study concludes with a discussion of decision-making in light of the conceptual models. Analysis of the sirategic oil company decision-making reveals a pattern and sequence in the decision-making process at an industry level, made within the dual framework of (i) consortiums and (ii) the UK (iQvernment's licensing and fiscal regimes. The consortium was the formal decision-making body, with decisions characterised by a iterative process of negotiation between companies, the consortium committee and the Government. Risk minimisation in order to maximise rewards is identified as one of the main driving forces behind decisionmaking.

Decision making during the adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in current AEC projects is believed as a key element to improve both BIM performance and project outcome. In order to provide the most informed decision and strategic plan, two vital elements are required: a comprehensive set of decision making criteria and a reasonable priority system. The literature analysis has revealed that existing assessment frameworks have limitations concerning these two elements. Therefore, this research has been designed to develop a more effective BIM evaluation Framework (BeF), to assist new BIM users and also provide a more effective implementation approach for BIM. In order to accomplish this objective, research steps of theoretical and empirical nature have been adopted: (a) a multi-dimensional BIM implementation Framework (BiF) was proposed based on the literature review; (b) use of a case study to test the proposed BiF on a real-life project; (c) a questionnaire approach to test the comprehensiveness of the proposed BiF on an industry level; (d) applying the Delphi method to further refine the proposed criteria in a specific context; (e) using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to develop a BeF and providing priority shifting for a more preferable strategic goal in Arup ShenZhen office (ASZ); (f) developing a validation system to prove the efficacy of the proposed BeF. The adoption priority and approach of BIM could be influenced by policies, culture, business structure, legislation etc. As a result, a specific context, China has been selected for this work. The research result could assist decision making in BIM management in the ASZ for a higher BIM performance. The framework by the Delphi method is suitable for the selected context: China. The proposed Delphi and AHP methodological framework can be replicated to assist decision making of BIM management in any AEC organisation.

In this dissertation, I study the impact of behavioral influences on strategic economic decision making in three essays.The first essay explores the interpersonal implications of guilt aversion in strategic settings. In doing so, I first introduce a stylized 2-player game where one players has an opportunity to induce guilt upon the other player in a manner derived from findings in the psychology literature. I then develop an experimental design, centered around this game, that allows me to test (i) whether agents attempt to induce guilt upon others in self-serving ways, (ii) whether agents are susceptible to the guilt induction of others, and (iii) whether agents are more trusting when they have an opportunity to induce guilt upon others. Furthermore, I theoretically show, via an application of the Battigalli and Dufwenberg (2007) model of simple guilt, that effective guilt induction can be supported as an equilibrium of the game considered.In the second essay, I explore the influence of posted price fairness concerns in bilateral negotiation settings. In doing so, I propose a price fairness model where, in addition to their material payoff, buyers receive disutility from engaging in negotiations, and aggressively negotiating, when the price is fair. As a result, the model predicts that buyers will negotiate less aggressively and possibly even forgo profitable negotiations when the posted price is fair, which is consistent with prior survey evidence on negotiation behavior. I also include a thorough discussion of the differences between the price fairness model and main alternative approaches to modeling fairness that exists in the literature.In the third essay, I experimentally investigate how the decision making quality of an agent's opponent influences learning in strategic games. In particular, I test whether learning-by-doing and learning-by-observing become more effective in games when agents face an optimal decision making opponent. To test these hypotheses, I propose a novel experimental design that enables me to measure strategic decision making quality and control the decision making quality of the opponent.

In this research project, I have integrated two research streams on international strategic decisions making in international firms: upper echelons or top management teams (TMT) internationalization research and international strategic decision making process research. Both research streams in international business literature have evolved independently, but there is a potential in combining these two streams of research. The first empirical paper “TMT internationalization and international strategic decision making process: a decision level analysis of rationality, speed, and performance” explores the influence of TMT internationalization on strategic decision rationality and speed and, subsequently, their effect on international strategic decision effectiveness (performance). The results show that the internationalization of TMT is positively related to decision effectiveness and this relationship is mediated by decision rationality while the hypotheses regarding the association between TMT internationalization and decision speed, and the mediating effect of speed were not supported. The second paper “TMT internationalization and international strategic decision rationality: the mediating role of international information” of my thesis is a simple but logical extension of first paper. The first paper showed that TMT Internationalization has a significant positive effect on international strategic decision rationality. The second paper explicitly showed that TMT internationalization affect on international strategic decision rationality comes from two sources: international experience (personal international knowledge and information) and international information collected from managerial international contacts. For this research project, I have collected data from international software firms in Pakistan. My research contributes to the literature on upper echelons theory and strategic decision making in context of international business and international firms by explicitly examining the link between TMT internationalization and characteristics of strategic decisions making process (i.e. rationality and speed) in international firms and their possible mediating effect on performance.

Saaty method is an advanced method of paired comparison method. The decision-maker first, the preferential relations pairs of criteria and the size of this preference. The size of the preferences expressed by the score of the selected point scale (see Table 27, s.39). In this step, described the decision maker obtains the matrix size preferences, or if the Saaty matrix. The weights of the criteria in the Saaty method can provide exact and aproximativními procedures. Due to the complexity and software complexity of exact methods in this thesis will be devoted to procedures aproximativním. Estimates of the weights of the criteria can be obtained by adding the elements in each row of the matrix and dividing their sum. The determination of the individual lines are estimates of the weights of the relevant criteria.

This thesis investigates the implementation of eleven strategic decisions in six organizations. The decisions concern the installation of new technology, the carrying out of various building programmes and the re-organization of organizational structures The organizations comprise a university, a water authority, two mail order companies and two chemical firms. The objective is to describe and explain implementation processes and outcomes. To this end, eleven independent variables and three dependent variables are distinguished. These conceptualise the success of implementation outcomes and define the factors which affect the level of success. Two groupings are isolated within the independent variables. The 'Enabler' group of variables is concerned with how familiar people are with what has to be implemented, the priority of implementation, having enough resources available, having a favourable organizational structure and maintaining a flexible approach during implementation. All these factors help to secure a moderate degree of success. However the second grouping of variables - the 'Realizers' - are required to achieve the highest level of success in implementation. These are to do with being clear about what has to be done and being able to evaluate what has been achieved, enjoying favourable conditions and support inside the organization, and having a little luck along the way. Conclusions are drawn about the levels of risk associated with implementing different topics and the steps which managers can take to reduce risk and enhance the chances of success.

La recerca que he desenvolupat a la meva tesi doctoral està centrada en la comprensió del paper que desenvolupa el innovative performance per influir en la presa de decisions estratègiques a nivell individual i d’organitzacions, en un context intensiu de coneixement. La meva tesi doctoral s’articula en tres capítols principals, que corresponen a tres articles d’investigació de la meva línia de treball actual. Basant-me en la investigació prèvia sobre els nivells d’aspiració i presa de decisions a nivell de gerència, en el primer article s’examinaran les condicions en què les empreses farmacèutiques canvien el seu partnering behavior a través del temps. En línia amb el pensament actual en Behavioral Theory and Evolutionary Theory of the firm, sostenim que qualsevol canvi en partnering behavior és considerat de risc, i es posa en marxa per la diferència (o el gap existent) entre el rendiment actual i el rendiment desitjat. Hem estudiat una mostra de 988 empreses farmacèutiques entre 1990 i 2006 –els resultats confirmen la idea central del treball- que suggereixen que el tipus de performance (financer o innovador) té una marcada influencia en el associated feedback loop amb les subseqüents conseqüències a nivell organitzatiu de l’empresa. Quan la performance financera s’allunya de les expectatives (tan per sobre com per sota) les empreses farmacèutiques disminueixen la magnitud dels canvis en partnering behavior. Per contra, quan la innovative performance s’allunya de les expectatives (tan per sobre com per sota) les empreses farmacèutiques augmenten la magnitud de canvi en partnering behavior. El segon article, a partir d’investigacions anteriors i actuals de la mobilitat dels treballador, és un intent exploratori que busca construir sobre la Behavioral and Prospect theory més concretament sobre la literatura de managerial risk taking amb l’objectiu d’explorar les influències “motivacionals” sobre la mobilitat individual a través de les empreses de la industria farmacèutica –específicament com les desviacions del rendiment des de punts de referència específics expliquen la probabilitat de la mobilitat (una acció amb risc). En línia amb les teories del coneixement mencionades prèviament, els nostres resultats suggereixen que: quan un inventor performs per sobre del seu nivell d’aspiració/expectativa (tan històrica com social), trobem un recolzament pels arguments d’aversió de risc quan un inventor performs per sota les seves expectatives està més predisposat a participar en la mobilitat entre organitzacions, considerada com a acció arriscada, però només quan es compara la seva actuació amb les aspiracions socials (per exemple, considerant el risc del perfil). Finalment, en el tercer article s’intenta donar llum a les preguntes “per què els inventors es mouen?” Estudis recents proposen respostes a aquesta pregunta fonamental centrant-se principalment o bé en l’estructura d’incentius en els contractes d’inventors (mercat, és a dir laboral intern) o bé en les oportunitats externes del mercat laboral. Nosaltres creiem que aquestes teories econòmiques suposen una explicació parcial de per què els treballadors amb talent participen en la mobilitat entre organitzacions. De fet, no tenim una idea clara sobre els fonaments sociològics que caracteritzen la mobilitat, concretament desconeixem les raons que porten l’inventor a assumir aquests riscs/ que hi ha darrera de la inclinació dels inventors a assumir aquests riscs. Per tant, el present article és un intent d’oferir un model més comprensible per explicar els antecedents de mobilitat entre organitzacions. Prenent com a base la Behavioral and Prospect theories i més concretament, la literatura sobre managerial risk taking el document té com a objectiu principal el d’explorar i subratllar les influencies motivacionals sobre la mobilitat individual a través de les empreses de la industria farmacèutica –específicament es centra en com la desviació del “rendiment” respecte punts de referència específics (aspiracions socials) explica la probabilitat (la inclinació a la) mobilitat (una acció arriscada). Els resultats de la nostra investigació confirmen i amplien els estudis anteriors sobre la mobilitat; juntament amb l’estructura d’incentius d’empresa per retenir els empleats i inventors amb talent, el mercat laboral explica la inclinació a la mobilitat, la desviació en la performance dels inventors des de social aspiration levels i també pot predir a tendència a la mobilitat dels inventors. En conclusió, a la meva tesi doctoral intento millorar la comprensió, i per tant oferir a la comunitat acadèmica de managment, de com organitzacions i individus aprenen de les seves accions en el passat i prenen (decisions basades en la subseqüent strategic decision-making) com a resposta a la interpretació de la performance necessària per millorar la performance i aconseguir competitivitat exitosa.
La investigación que he desarrollado durante mi tesis doctoral se centra en la comprensión del papel que desempeña el rendimiento innovador para influir en las decisiones estratégicas a nivel organizacional e individual en contextos intensivos en conocimiento. Mi tesis doctoral se articula en tres capítulos principales, que representan tres papeles de trabajo actuales. Basándose en la investigación previa sobre los niveles de aspiración y toma de decisiones gerenciales, en el primer documento de trabajo se examinará las condiciones en que las empresas farmacéuticas cambian su partnering behavior a través del tiempo. Usando fundamentos de Behavioral Theory y Evolutionary Theory of the firm, sostenemos que cualquier cambio en el partnering behavior se considera riesgoso, y es accionado por la brecha entre el rendimiento real y el rendimiento de aspiración. Prueba de una muestra de 988 empresas farmacéuticas a partir de 1990 a 2006, nuestros resultados confirman la idea central del trabajo - que el tipo de desempeño (financiero o innovador) tiene una fuerte influencia en el circuito de retorno correspondiente y la acción organizativa posterior: cualquier desvío de desempeño financiero de aspiraciones predice risk aversión behavior (i.e. menos cambio en partnering behavior) mientras cualquier desvío de desempeño innovador de aspiraciones predice risktaking behavior (i.e. mas cambio en partnering behavior). El segundo documento de trabajo, a partir de investigaciones anteriores y actuales de la movilidad de los empleados, es un intento exploratorio que busca construir sobre Behavioral Theory y la perspectiva, sobre todo, en la literatura de managerial risk taking con el fin de explorar las influencias motivacionales sobre la movilidad individual a través de las empresas de la industria farmacéutica - específicamente cómo las desviaciones del rendimiento desde los puntos de referencia específicos (aspiraciones) explican la probabilidad de movilidad (una acción arriesgada). De acuerdo con las tradiciones teóricas mencionadas anteriormente, nuestros resultados sugieren que: cuando un inventor realiza por encima de su nivel de aspiración (tanto histórica como social), encontramos apoyo para los argumentos de aversión al riesgo (es decir, menos propensos a cambiar de empleador), cuando un inventor realiza a continuación sus niveles de aspiración es más probable que participen en la movilidad entre organizaciones, como la acción arriesgada, pero sólo cuando se compara su desempeño con las aspiraciones sociales (es decir, teniendo riesgo de perfil). Finalmente, en el tercer documento de trabajo se intenta responder a las preguntas "¿por qué los inventores se mueven?" Estudios recientes que proponen respuesta a esta pregunta fundamental se centran principalmente en la estructura de incentivos en los contratos de inventor (es decir, mercado laboral interno) o oportunidades externas del mercado laboral. Nosotros creemos que estas tradiciones económicas teóricas presentar una representación parcial de por qué los empleados talentosos participan en la movilidad entre organizaciones. De hecho, no tenemos una idea clara sobre los fundamentos sociológicos que caracterizan a la movilidad, en particular, las razones motivacionales del inventor detrás de la participación en tal toma de riesgo (es decir, movilidad). Por lo tanto, el presente articulo es un intento que busca ofrecer un modelo más amplio para explicar los antecedentes de la movilidad entre organizaciones. Sobre la base de Behavioral Theory y tomando la perspectiva, sobre todo, de la literatura managerial risk taking, el documento tiene como objetivo principal de explorar y llamar la atención a las influencias motivacionales sobre la movilidad individual a través de las empresas de la industria farmacéutica - específicamente cómo las desviaciones de rendimiento de los puntos de referencia específicos (aspiraciones sociales) explican la probabilidad de movilidad (una acción arriesgada). Los resultados de nuestra investigación confirman y amplían los estudios anteriores sobre la movilidad: junto con la estructura de incentivos de la empresa para retener a los empleados talentosos y a las dinámicas de mercado de laboral externo que explican los inventores la posibilidad de la movilidad, las desviaciones del inventor de su rendimiento desde los niveles de aspiración sociales también predicen la probabilidad de inventor de la movilidad. En conclusión, en mi tesis doctoral intento de comprender mejor, y por lo tanto ofrecer a la comunidad académica de administración de empresa, como las organizaciones y los individuos aprenden de sus acciones pasadas y deciden posteriores tomas de decisiones estratégicas como respuesta a la interpretación del rendimiento, necesario para mejorar el rendimiento y reunir el éxito competitivo.
The research I developed during my doctoral dissertation focuses on the understanding of the role that innovative performance plays in influencing strategic decision-making at the organizational and individual level in knowledge intensive contexts. My doctoral dissertation is articulated in three main chapters, which represent three current working papers. Building on the prior research on aspiration levels and managerial decision making, in the first working paper we examine the conditions under which pharmaceutical firms change their partnering behavior across time. Using insights drawn from behavioral theory and evolutionary theory of the firm, we argue that any change in partnering behavior is considered risky, and is triggered by the gap between actual performance and aspirational performance. Testing a sample of 988 pharmaceutical firms from 1990 to 2006, our results confirm the central idea of the paper - that the type of performance (financial or innovative) has a strong influence on the associated feedback loop and subsequent organizational action: any deviation of financial performance from aspirations predicts risk aversion behavior (i.e. less change in partnering behavior) while any deviation of innovative performance from aspirations predicts risk taking behavior (i.e. more change in partnering behavior). The second working paper, building on previous and current research of employees’ mobility, is an exploratory attempt that seeks to build on behavioral and prospect theory, particularly, on the literature of managerial risk taking in order to explore the motivational influences on individual mobility across firms in the pharmaceutical industry - specifically how performance deviations from specific reference points (aspirations) explain the likelihood of mobility (a risky action). In line with the theoretical traditions mentioned above, our results suggest that: when an inventor performs above her aspiration level (both historical and social), we found support for risk adversity arguments (i.e. less likely to change employer); when an inventor performs below her aspiration levels is more likely to engage in inter-organizational mobility, such as risky action, but only when comparing her performance to the social aspirations (i.e. risk taking profile). Finally, in the third working paper we attempt to answer to the questions “why do inventors move?” Recent studies propose answer to this fundamental question focusing mainly either on incentives structure in inventor’s contracts (i.e. internal labor market) or external labor market opportunities. We believe that these theoretical economic traditions present a partial representation of why talented employees engage in inter-organizational mobility. In fact, we do not have a clear understanding on the sociological underpinnings characterizing mobility, in particular about the inventor’s motivational rationales behind the engagement in such risky decision. Building on behavioral and prospect theory, particularly, on the literature of managerial risk taking, the paper mainly aims to explore and to bring attention to the motivational influences on individual mobility across firms in the pharmaceutical industry - specifically how performance deviations from specific reference points (social aspirations) explain the likelihood of mobility (a risky action). The results of our research confirm and extend previous studies on mobility: along with firm’s incentive structure to retain talented employees and inventors’ labor market explain the likelihood of mobility, inventor’s performance deviations from social aspiration levels also predict inventor’s likelihood of mobility. In conclusions, in my doctoral dissertation I attempt to better understand, and therefore offer to the academic management community, how organizations and individuals learn from their past actions and decide on subsequent strategic decision-making as a response to performance interpretation necessary to improve performance and gather competitive success.

BACKGROUND: When it comes to corporate decision making, the traditional rational model suggests that deliberative analysis yields good results. Thus, when contemplating strategic moves, executives are “required” to conduct deliberative analyses. As today’s business environment is becoming increasingly complex and fast-paced, however, executives often face the dilemma of having to make carefully considered strategic decisions on the one hand and not having enough time on the other hand. Intuition offers an efficient solution in this situation. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to investigate how corporate executives employ both rationality and intuition in making strategic decisions under uncertain, complex and time-pressured circumstances. RESEARCH METHOD: We conducted three face-to-face interviews with executives from three companies in Sweden. Each interview lasted around one hour.    RESULTS: Drawing on previous psychological and managerial research, we argue that rationality and intuition are better viewed as being complementary rather than separate. Findings from the study suggest that intuition could serve as an effective and efficient means for managers to make strategic decisions; and that intuition indeed plays a role in strategic decision making under complex, uncertain and time limited contexts.

"I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind" Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Web metrics offer significant potential for online businesses to incorporate high-quality, real-time information into their strategic marketing decision-making (SDM) process. This SDM process is affected by the firm�s strategic direction, which is critical for web businesses. A review of the widely researched strategy and SDM literature identified that managers use extensive information to support and improve strategic decisions and make informed decisions. Offline SDM processes might be appropriate for the online environment but the limited literature on web metrics has not researched information needs for online SDM. Even though web metrics can be a valuable tool for web businesses to inform strategic marketing decisions, and their collection might be less expensive and easier than offline measures, virtually no published research has combined web metrics and SDM concepts into one research project. To address this gap in the literature, the thesis investigated the differences and commonalities of online and offline SDM process approaches, the use of web metrics categories for online SDM stages, and the issues encountered during that process through four research questions. A preliminary conceptual model based on the literature review was refined through preliminary research, which addressed the research questions and investigated the current state of web metrics. After investigating various methodologies, a multi-stage qualitative methodology was selected. The use of qualitative methods represents a contribution to knowledge regarding methodological approaches to online research. Four stages within the online SDM process were shown to benefit from the use of web metrics: the setting of priorities, the setting of objectives, the pretest stage and the review stage. The results identified the similarity of online and offline SDM processes; demonstrated that Traffic, Transactions, Customer Feedback and Consumer Behaviour categories provide basic metrics used by most companies; identified the Environment, Technology, Business Results and Campaigns categories as supplementary categories that are applied according to the marketing objectives; and investigated the results based on different types of companies (website classification, channel focus, size and cluster association). Three clusters were identified that relate to the strategic importance of the website and web metrics. Modifying the initial conceptual model, six issues were distinguished that affect the use of web metrics: the adoption and use of web metrics by managers; the integration of multiple sources of metrics; the establishment of industry benchmarks; data quality; the differences to offline measures; as well as resource constraints that interfere with the appropriate web metrics analysis. Links to offline marketing strategy literature and established business concepts were explored and explanations provided where the results confirmed or modified these concepts. Using qualitative methods, the research assisted in building theory of web metrics and online SDM processes. The results show that offline theories apply to the online environment and conventional concepts provide guidance for online processes. Dynamic aspects of strategy relate to the online environment, and qualitative research methods appear suitable for online research. Publications during this research project: Weischedel, B., Matear, S. and Deans, K. R. (2003) The Use of E-metrics in Strategic Marketing Decisions - A Preliminary Investigation. Business Excellence �03 - 1st International Conference on Performance Measures, Benchmarking and Best Practices in the New Economy, Guimaraes, Portugal; June 10-13, 2003. Weischedel, B., Deans, K. R. and Matear, S. (2004) Emetrics - An Empirical Study of Marketing Performance Measures for Web Businesses. Performance Measurement Association Conference 2004, Edinburgh, UK; July 28-30, 2004. Weischedel, B., Matear, S. and Deans, K. R. (2005) "A Qualitative Approach to Investigating Online Strategic Decision-Making" Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 8 No 1, pp. 61-76. Weischedel, B., Matear, S. and Deans, K. R. (2005) "The Use of Emetrics in Strategic Marketing Decisions - A Preliminary Investigation" International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, Vol. 2 Nos 1/2, p. 109-125.

This study is based on the strategic and logistical challenges of having a complex distribution network, which can make it difficult to get a holistic view over the distribution costs. The costs are often aggregated for many products, which makes it challenging to use as decision support on a product level. Many companies lack a tool to handle this complexity, since the costs and profitability varies between the channels and intermediaries used. This makes it problematic to determine the profitability on a product level. In the different parts of the distribution chain, there are elements that drive the costs for each activity, called activity drivers. When these activity drivers have been identified, they can be used to allocate the distribution costs to the different products. The aim of this study is to develop a tool that can be used to categorize distribution costs and to determine which activity drivers that result in the fairest cost allocation. The fairest cost allocation is a complex expression, and is briefly defined as the allocation key that result in a costs allocation that represent each products level of resource consumption. This means that products that have consumed a large amount of resources should carry a larger part of the costs compared to the products that have consumed a smaller amount of resources. Sometimes it is not obvious which allocation key that represents the reality in the fairest way, and in that case, the allocated costs are compared to the products sales values. The sales value often differs between the products. The determined allocation key is the one that result in the most even allocation when comparing the allocated cost to the sales values. The case company Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (Sobi) is located in Stockholm, Sweden. They find it difficult to get a view over the costs for the different parts of the distribution chain, and to allocate the costs fair between the products. This study have investigated the distribution from Sobi’s central warehouse in the Netherlands to the end customers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom via the local storages in each country, as well as Sweden and Estonia. This was done by categorizing the costs for each activity in the invoices from the local storages, into different cost categories. After this, the costs were allocated with different allocation keys that thereafter were compared, to find the most fair allocation key per category. In the end of this study, the lessons learned and methods used have been written down, and an allocation tool has been developed. Any company that wants to make strategic decisions on a product level can use this tool. Throughout the study, the five steps that make up the allocation tool have been followed. The tool is divided into the following steps; determination of cost categories, choice of activities, selection of activity drivers, categorization of costs and analyzing activity drivers. When choosing allocation key, it is essential to find the balance between an even allocation of the costs between the products, and to make sure that the allocation represent each products level of resource consumption. If the allocation is unfair, it can make products look unprofitable, even though they actually are profitable and necessary in reality. The difficulties to find a balance show the complexity in the determination of the most fair allocation key, since it is not always obvious. If the cost categories had been divided into smaller categories with more similar activity drivers, the dilemma of choosing allocation key might have been solved. However, it is important to bear in mind that when using more cost categories, the categorization and allocation becomes more time consuming. The tool has been created as a result of this study, and is based on a complex situation, which means that assumptions and simplifications have been made to be able to draw general conclusions. It is important to bare these simplifications in mind, when applying the tool to other situations than the one investigated in this study. The allocation tool can be used to draw strategic conclusions on a product level, since it makes it possible to be aware of the profitability of the products and, if necessary, exclude unprofitable products from the product assortment.

Over the last century, there has been growing interest in changing the approach to maintenance management. The current practice for selecting critical equipment and making a decision on the most appropriate maintenance strategy is perceived to have serious limitations, principally because it lacks decision analysis. Due to the complex nature of decision-making in maintenance management, different models have been developed for selecting critical equipment. However, many of these models considered maintenance management as operational concern and ignored the strategic concerns of maintenance management. This thesis builds upon earlier works on decision-making for selecting critical equipment and maintenance strategy. It sets out to construct three hypotheses by introducing evidence from a comprehensive literature review, case study analysis and in-depth interviews. The thesis focuses on artificial intelligence and multi-criteria decision-making techniques (i.e. Fuzzy Logic and Analytical Hierarchy Process) to bridge this gap. It proposes a strategic decision-making model in maintenance and asset management for selecting critical equipment and deciding on a maintenance strategy. The novelty of model is to propose an approach in which maintenance strategy can be applied based on the equipment criticality while not making a trade-off between safety and cost but rather to combine the concern of safety with financial, operational and technical perspectives. The model provides an opportunity to consider safety as the first priority. The research output suggests that existing criticality assessment methods for optimising maintenance delivery have limited value and are suffering from a lack of strategic decision analysis. Multi-criteria decision-making tools could be used to improve decision-making of criticality assessment methods and hence maintenance strategy implementation. The validity of the proposed strategic decision-making model was tested through case study analysis and in-depth interviews. The results suggest that a strategic decision-making model could have a significant impact on improving safety, reliability and operational availability. The strategic decision-making model would enable asset managers to track the consequences of their decisions whilst dealing with maintenance. It is also an effective tool in the hands of a maintenance department to convince their asset managers to make a maintenance investment.

Despite of significant role of collective decision making in strategic community development towards sustainability, this area is seen to be generally underestimated by community planners and ecovillage members, comparing with, for example, legal, financial and technological aspects of community life. This study aims to understand how Strategic Sustainable Development (SSD) perspective can contribute to decision making procedures in ecovillages in Sweden. The research examines how decision making procedures work in ecovillages today and to which extent strategic component, viewed through SSD perspective, is currently incorporated. Secondly research explores how SSD perspective could possibly be incorporated into decision making procedures in ecovillages, in order to foster their development towards sustainability. To address this purpose decision making model was created, based on literature review; three ecovillage studies were conducted; and recommendations were offered, based on findings from literature and findings from current experience of selected ecovillages in Sweden.

Changes in the environment are a major area of concern to any firm in its strategic decision making process (SDMP). SDMP is considered to be an important component in the success of firms in the strategic management literature. This includes small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the electronic, telecom and information technology (IT) sector which are subjected to frequent and extremely dynamic environments both internally and externally, unlike many other industries. A lack of prior studies supporting an understanding of the SDMP in SMEs is evident, and coupled with the extremely volatile environmental conditions that compound the problem, makes SMES dealing in electronic, telecom and IT products and services highly vulnerable to closure. An immediate investigation into the SDMP in SMEs is needed and long overdue. This research seeks to address this gap in the knowledge. In order to address the gap this research used synoptic formalism and incrementalism to develop an understanding on how SMEs in the electronic, telecom and IT sector make decisions and what is the nature of these decisions. A Strategic Decision Making Process (SDMP) model was developed based on prior research. Decision magnitude of impact acted as the input to the SDMP, rationality and intuition acted as the process component, and decision process output as the output component. Thus these three concepts acted as the three components of a process (input-process-output) configuration. The model facilitated the development of an understanding of the functioning of decision magnitude of impact as a decision characteristic factor, its relationship to SDMP and process dimensions (rationality in decision making and intuition) as an antecedent (and hence as a predictor) of decision output variables (decision process effectiveness), quality of the decision process output through the mediation of decision dimensions. In line with the need to understand the SDMP in SMEs data were collected from managers of a large number of SMEs belonging to electronic, telecom and IT sector. The territory chosen was the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Kingdom of Bahrain, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates) as this region provides a rich source of such SMEs and the environment is highly dynamic. A self-administered questionnaire was developed by adapting previously validated questionnaire scales. Pre-testing and pilot surveys were used to ensure that the contents, format and scales were appropriate. A range of decision makers in those SMEs were targeted. 464 valid questionnaires were returned, representing a response rate of over 50%. The data was coded and analysed using SPSS/AMOS, two widely used statistical software tools. The data analysis steps included reliability and validity testing (Cronbach’s alpha and Confirmatory Factor Analysis, respectively). The entire model was tested using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Using SEM it was possible to identify the model, test the parsimonious nature of the model, determine whether the identified model makes theoretical sense and examine the fitness of the model to the data. The predictability of decision process output by decision magnitude of impact was analysed using path analysis as part of the SEM. The research outcome showed that in the electronic, telecommunication and information technology sector, where the environment is dynamic, decision magnitude as an important independent variable influences rationality in decision making directly and decision effectiveness, quality of decision process output and firm commitment indirectly. Rationality in decision making was found act as an important medicating variable in the strategic decision making process. In the same vein it was found that intuition is not affected by decision magnitude of impact. Further, dynamism in the industry and firm performance were also seen to influence decision effectiveness, quality of decision process output and firm commitment although the influence of dynamism in the industry on firm commitment was found to be very low. Thus the main contribution of this research is the development of an understanding of the relationship between decision magnitude of impact as input to the SDMP and hence as predictor of decision process output and the SDMP process output. Furthermore, the research has advanced current knowledge on the influence of rationality in decision making and intuition as mediators between decision magnitude of impact and decision process output variables. These two aspects have been tested in an SME sector that is affected seriously by dynamism in the industry and with varying firm performance as a contextual feature. The comprehensive research outcome can be of benefit to the SMEs in the electronic, telecom and IT sector and support them in overcoming potential vulnerabilities by making strategic decisions whose magnitude of impact on the firms is high and a decision process that is rational. In addition from the point of view of methodology this research has used SEM in understanding the nature and functioning of the model as well as the operationalisation of the variables. The outcome of this research is expected to benefit the SMEs in the electronic, telecom and IT sector in their SDMP and has opened up a new area of research for other researchers and academics.

In times of crisis, leaders are faced with deep uncertainty and effective crisis management requires strategic decisions to ensure long-term sustainability. There are opposing academic views on the types of cognition and philosophies used in crisis decision-making, thus raising a need for empirical evidence. Coupled with this, increasing turbulence in the business environment has created a renewed interest in research on management decision-making in uncertainty. The novel coronavirus pandemic represents an unprecedented challenge which has accelerated these research agendas. This study explores how business leaders in the banking sector respond to crisis and uncertainty in their organisational strategic decision-making process. Using a qualitative approach, twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with business leaders. This study found that crisis and uncertainty created opposing forces for decision makers which led to a combination of intuition and analysis being applied, shifts in strategy were identified and a three-stage approach was applied in decision-making using a pragmatic philosophy. This study contributes to literature by providing an in-depth understanding of the strategic decision-making process used by business leaders in banking during the coronavirus crisis, revisiting the roles of intuition and analysis in decision-making and proposing a framework which could lead to effective and sustainable strategicdecision making.
Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2020.
pt2021
Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)
MBA
Unrestricted

The thesis describes an exploration and analysis of the nature of strategic decision-making processes (SDMP) in Libyan Commercial Banks. The role of 'rationality‘, 'intuition‘ and 'political behaviour‘ in five strategic decisions of very high importance were explored in this study, by conducting sixteen face-to-face interviews with senior decision-makers, all closely involved with the decisions, from three commercial banks. Other observations of SDM behaviour and documentary information were also recorded. Field work enabled analysis and interpretation of the perceived influence of `decision importance` on the process, as well as an exploration of the three key influencing factors on the SDMP. Consistent findings for the nature of the process were found for all five decisions. Rationality was a key factor of the process. Considerable efforts were made by key staff to gather and analyse information, discuss issues, as well as engage consultants and seek advice from Commercial Banks outside Libya. This finding appeared to reflect the high importance of the decisions coupled with the inexperience of the senior management group. This lead to some anxiety and, as a consequence, risk-reducing activities. The SDs were based on analysis, advice and past experience, rather than on personal judgement. None of the banks exhibited strong political or intuitive behaviour in their DMPs. Instead there was constructive consultation in making decisions. DM was driven by clear decision motives, the importance attached to the decision, and a committed effort to minimize uncertainty and risk. Other factors considered were that the decisions were financially rewarding, delivered customer satisfaction and employee welfare, as well as being socially acceptable. Analysis of the data has enabled the development of a model which is consistent with an interpretation that places 'anxiety‘ in the senior management group as the dominant factor driving the adoption of a rational approach to DM, with low intuitive or political activity. Anxiety is derived from the crucial importance of the decision, the relative inexperience of the senior management group, and some policy pressure from the Central Bank of Libya to change and modernize banking methods. The availability of resources and time to the senior group, in a generally munificent environment, also made it feasible for senior staff to adopt rational methods of analysis for DM, and as a consequence reduce their degree of anxiety.

Family firms can be characterised by a unique business setting, where family and work conditions are closely intertwined. This particular business setting promotes distinctive strategic behaviour. Yet, scholarly understanding of strategic decision processes in family firms remains limited, particularly from a perspective that pays attention to the role of micro-processes in the overall decision-making process. This study addresses this gap from a strategy-as-practice perspective and by posing the research question: ‘how does the family context influence the strategic decision-making process in the family firm?’ The author uses a critical realist lens and case study method to examine multiple strategic decisions across 7 family firms.

The M3 theory contributes to new knowledge through original research and advanced scholarship by introducing a descriptive framework for strategic decision-making in uncertain and changing environments. Aided by the introduction of a Social Realism epistemology into management literature it is differentiated its ability to present complex strategic positions as essentialist (via modes), relative (via models), and dynamic (via momentum) to plot the dynamic trajectory of innovation emergence, change, adaptation and transformation over time. At a fundamental level, the M3 theory identifies a consistent set of rules that decision-makers intentionally or unintentionally engage with or ignore to take strategic positions based on four integrated yet polarized pairs of modes: systematic (+S) vs. responsive (+R) strategies, and conforming (+C), vs. differentiating (+D) strategies. Systematic strategies (+S) is the mode dedicated to increasingly sophisticated rational cognitive processes; these processes plan, purposefully compartmentalize, and regulate emotions. Responsive strategies (+R) conversely, is the mode dedicated to increasingly sensitized intuitive processes; these processes are reflective, associative, action-orientated and emotionally expressive. The second pair of modes intersects with the two aforementioned modes with conforming strategies (+C) moving towards convergence by adapting or conveying socially perceived superior norms; these processes include the exploitation of existing power. In contrast, differentiating strategies (+D) represents the mode dedicated to diverging from traditional norms with empowerment for exploration. These processes include novelty-seeking, sabotage, risk-taking, experimentation, play, flexibility, discovery, and higher levels of innovation. Finally, the dynamic (momentum) component informs how strategic modes and models under uncertainty improve and adjust in sophistication under the pressure and demands of the four drives (+L). The M3 theory is informed by three distinct but interrelated and simultaneous empirical streams of data: (i) field data from five ethnographic case studies, with research participant feedback loops; (ii) the mapping of 200+ peer reviewed decision-making models; and (iii) prototyping the principles in the construction of the emergent M3 theory.

The literature review has revealed that strategic decisions are complex, ill-structured and require much of organizational resources. Organizations are dependent on strategic decisions for sustained performance or even survival. Strategic decision-making is important in an organization as it is the process used to implement the strategic intent of the firm. Literature has also revealed that managers fail to process optimally, information for effective strategic decision-making due to their cognitive limits. This study set out to explore and understand the enablers and inhibitors of strategic decision-making effectiveness. The study was conducted using an exploratory qualitative method, which consisted of in-depth semi-structured interviews. A total of 14 executives and managers were interviewed from coal mining organizations operating in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. Interviews were recorded then transcribed into text. Directed content and frequency analysis were used to analyze the data and extract common themes. ATLAS.ti was used for the coding process during data analysis. The findings of this study were the enablers and inhibitors of strategic decision-making effectiveness being discussed in detail. An empirically based framework was developed using the findings on ensuring strategic decision-making effectiveness. The factors used for the framework are : having support from the superiors, have a competent team in strategic decision-making, considering the external business environment, considering and involving stakeholders, ensure the quality of data and continuously review strategic decision-making process.
Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2015.
sn2016
Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)
MBA
Unrestricted

Leaders have a duty to make decisions that advance the course of their organisations. Cognitive limitations emanating from human bounded rationality, as well as complex external environments, place a limit on a leader’s ability to make quality decisions. This problem becomes pronounced when leaders have to make strategic decisions; which are often irreversible and commit scarce organisational resources. There is, therefore creates a pressing need for organisations to develop capabilities that can aid leaders and their organisation discern their complex environment and improve decision making. This research was an inquiry into the development of dynamic capabilities that would aid sense-making, and decision making. The focal point for this inquiry was the role of Data science in enabling the creation of sense-making capabilities. The study deployed an inductive qualitative methodology suitable for exploring the link between data science-enabled dynamic capabilities, and strategic decision making, as an emerging area of work. Part of this exploration involved reviewing existing literature from both business and academic sources. Data collection from participants ensured the infusion of domain knowledge into this study as augmented by academic literature in order to improve the reliability of the findings.
Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2020.
pt2021
Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)
MBA
Unrestricted

This dissertation examines decision making as discourse to capture subtle characteristics and processes within top management team discussions and examines their influence on decision outcomes. Additionally, this approach allows for exploration of decision making processes in real time by utilizing audio analysis techniques that can provide a more dynamic and integrative view of conversations and discussions as they relate to the dialogue and debate that goes on within top management teams, as well as providing an alternate pathway of study for top management team and group research, decision making studies, and the fields of communication and conversational analysis.