How do executive teams make rapid decisions in the high-velocity microcomputer industry? This inductive study of eight microcomputer firms led to propositions exploring that question. Fast decision makers use more, not less, information than do slow decision makers. The former also develop more, not fewer, alternatives, and use a two-tiered advice process. Conflict resolution and integration among strategic decisions and tactical plans are also critical to the pace of decision making. Finally, fast decisions based on this pattern of behaviors lead to superior performance.

Making Fast Strategic Decisions In High-Velocity Environments

Top management teams make strategic decisions, and the products of their decision making influence organizational performance. However, a subtle paradox is embedded in this relationship. This study focuses on conflict as the crux of this paradox and provides evidence from two different samples of conflict's consistent yet contradictory effects on decision quality, consensus, and affective acceptance.

Distinguishing the Effects of Functional and Dysfunctional Conflict on Strategic Decision Making: Resolving a Paradox for Top Management Teams

In a longitudinal study, we found that higher group performance was associated with a particular pattern of conflict. Teams performing well were characterized by low but increasing levels of proces...

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The Dynamic Nature of Conflict: A Longitudinal Study of Intragroup Conflict and Group Performance.

Recent research developments underscore the need for research on the processes that link board demography with firm performance. In this article we develop a model of board processes by integrating the literature on boards of directors with the literature on group dynamics and workgroup effectiveness. The resulting model illuminates the complexity of board dynamics and paves the way for future empirical research that expands and refines our understanding of what makes boards effective.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/259138.pdf

Cognition and corporate governance: Understanding boards of directors as strategic decision making groups

New Patterns of Management.

Top Decisions: Strategic Decision-Making in Organizations.

Time is seen as a fundamental but neglected variable in organizational analysis. The paper develops a model of organizational time based upon the notion of a timeframe whereby time is advocated as a socially constructed variable, experienced in the present as represented by a number of variables which form four clusters of time. Explanations of this experience of time in the present derive from the organizational and institutional context. The timeframe of an organization is also seen to affect decision making and learning processes. The timeframe is bounded by knowledge of the past which is used to envision the future. The essential aspect of the past is the extent to which past knowledge can be codified, while the essential aspect of the future is the degree of congru ence over visions of the future. The timeframe model is used to develop scen arios of how knowledge codification and goal congruence can change.

Time in organizations: Its Experience, . Explanations and Effects

Using 136 cases of strategic decision-making described by a number of variables drawn from the literature, three distinct types of decision-making processes are found. These are termed sporadic, fluid and constricted processes. They are parsimonious characterizations of decision-making processes which, given the variety of the 30 organizations from which the cases are drawn, should be generalizable to a wide range of contexts.

Sporadic, fluid and constricted processes: three types of strategic decision making in organizations[1]

This paper presents a framework for the comparative analysis of strategic decision-making processes. It draws together and integrates predominant but previously disparate theories of decision-making. Examples are given of how decision-making processes may be characterized and, hence, facilitate comparison across all types of strategic decisions. Explanation of why decision processes may differ is from two perspectives. First, the complexity of the topic may lead to particular characteristics of the decision process. Secondly, the cleavage of interests which a topic arouses may also lead to particular aspects of decision processes. We argue that each decision topic has varying levels of both complexity and cleavage and four examples of strategic decisions are analyzed on these dimensions. We identify four profiles of decision-making processes associated with varying levels of complexity and cleavage and we finally suggest that our model may explain and empirically demonstrate variations across a large number of diverse strategic decisions.

Richard J. Butler

Papers

Top Decisions: Strategic Decision-Making in Organizations.

Time in organizations: Its Experience, . Explanations and Effects

Sporadic, fluid and constricted processes: three types of strategic decision making in organizations[1]

Complexity and cleavage: dual explanations of strategic decision‐making [i]

Cycles of trust and distrust in joint-ventures