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Research summary: In contrast to previous research that emphasized macro-to-macro relationships, this study investigates how strategic decision characteristics shape the creative process at the organizational micro-level. Whereas individual creativity thrives on novel combinations of diverse knowledge and perspectives, we argue that the characteristics of strategic decisions influence the extent to which employees' combinatory activities enhance their creativity. Multilevel modeling results based on 638 employees from 34 organizations show that the positive relationship between tertius iungens (TI) orientation and creative performance is reinforced by strategic decision comprehensiveness, especially when coupled with low strategic decision speed. The results suggest that, paradoxically, when top managers consider a narrower range of options and act more quickly to respond to challenges in the external environment, they risk constraining creative processes within the organization. Managerial summary: To innovate, managers are often advised to make strategic decisions based on changes in their external business environment. Our research suggests that managers should also consider how strategic decision-making enables the social processes through which employees generate creative ideas essential to organizational innovation. Our results show that employees who bring people in their network and their diverse ideas together (i.e., the tertius iungens [TI] orientation) tend to improve creative performance. However, for those employees is it easier to develop creative ideas when strategic decisions are comprehensive and slow? Paradoxically, when top managers consider a narrower range of options and act more quickly to respond to challenges in the external environment, they risk constraining the social processes that lead to creativity within the organization.

Research summary: Strategic dissent represents divergence in ideas, preferences, and beliefs related to ideal and/or future strategic emphasis. Conventional wisdom in strategic management holds that such differences in managerial cognitions lead to higher-quality strategic decisions, and thus to enhanced firm performance. However, 4 decades of empirical research have not provided consistent findings or clear insights into the effects of strategic dissent. Hence, we analyze the relative validity of predictions about these effects from both social psychological theories of group behavior and information processing perspectives on decision-making. Then, we conduct a meta-analytic path analysis (MASEM) based on current empirical evidence. Synthesizing data from 78 articles, we put to rest the notion that strategic dissent leads to positive outcomes for organizations and estimate how negative its effects actually are. Managerial summary: Top management teams (TMTs) set the tone and direction for their firms in important ways. Top managers, however, often disagree over fundamental issues related to strategy. Such strategic dissent affects how important decisions are made, and thus how the firm performs. In more specific terms and contrary to popular belief, strategic dissent creates not only dysfunctional relationships among top managers, but also disrupts the process by which these managers exchange, discuss, and integrate information and ideas in making strategic decisions. In short, firms have not yet generated value through numerous perspectives, ideas, and opinions among their top managers. We discuss interventions that could prove helpful in efforts to benefit from having diverse cognitions in a TMT.

PurposeIn recent years, rapid changes in the economic situation and high levels of competition have increased the need for innovation in order to gain success. In such circumstances, organizational strategists are considered as critical in determining the success or failure of organizations. Using innovation in various aspects of organizational operations is the most important factor to achieve sustainable competitive advantages in industry. As a result, analyzing the effective factors involved in promoting the efficiency of innovative activities in the organization and ways of achieving it are of utmost importance. Thus, this paper examines the relationship between communication and innovation performance with respect to the intermediary role of strategic decision-making process speed.Design/methodology/approachThe present study has used quantitative methodology and questionnaire to collect data from 450 managers and members who are involved in the decision-making process in 150 companies operating in the food-industry sector. Data analysis was done by using structural equation modeling and AMOS software.FindingsThe results of the data analysis suggest that communication and strategic decision-making speed possess a significant positive impact on innovation performance. Also, strategic decision-making speed has sufficiently played the intermediary role between communication and innovation performance.Originality/valueThis survey specifies the effects of communication on the success of making fast strategic decision and innovation performance which aid Iranian food companies to tackle one of the managerial challenges: postponing strategic decisions due to lack of efficient communication to get information. In addition, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this essay is a first in Iran.

Research Summary: We develop a behavioral theory of real options that relaxes the informational and behavioral assumptions underlying applications of financial options theory to real assets. To do so, we augment real option theory's focus on uncertain future asset values (prospective uncertainty) with feedback learning theory that considers uncertain current asset values (contemporaneous uncertainty). This enables us to incorporate behavioral bias in the feedback learning process underlying the option execution/termination decision. The resulting computational model suggests that firms that inappropriately account for contemporaneous uncertainty and are subject to learning biases may experience substantial downside risk in undertaking real options. Moreover, contrary to the standard option result, greater uncertainty may decrease option value, making commitment to an investment path more effective than remaining flexible. Managerial Summary: Executives recognize the need to make uncertain investments to grow their business while mitigating downside risk. The analogy between financial options and real corporate investments provides an appealing method to consider the practical challenge of such investment decisions. Unfortunately, the \"real options\" analogy seems to break down in practice. We identify how a second form of uncertainty confounds real options intuition, leading managers to overestimate the value of uncertain investments. We present a behavioral real options model that accounts for both forms of uncertainty and suggest how uncertainty interacts with behavioral bias in the option execution/termination decision. Our model facilitates assessment of the conditions under which investments in uncertain opportunities are usefully considered as real options, and provides a means to evaluate their attractiveness.

Although cultural similarity is often considered to facilitate the development of negotiations from a win-win or value creation approach, the evidence obtained calls this assumption into question. Recognizing negotiation as a critical component of organizational strategic processes, this study challenges the traditional integrative/competitive dichotomy commonly used in negotiation behavior analysis. The study adopts an abductive reasoning approach, enabling an iterative dialogue between empirical observations and existing negotiation theory. From a methodological perspective, the research is positioned as a theory elaboration study, aiming to refine and extend established negotiation frameworks rather than to test predefined hypotheses. Based on 21 in-depth interviews with professional buyers engaged in customer/supplier negotiations at four leading supermarket chains in Costa Rica, which together represent more than 80% of the national supermarket market share in the country. The study examines how the degree of cultural similarity influences the three categories of negotiating actions: inappropriate competitive, acceptable competitive, and integrative. The findings show that greater cultural similarity does foster more integrative actions but does not reduce the occurrence of acceptable or inappropriate competitive actions. These insights are relevant both academically and professionally, particularly in the fields of business and strategic decision-making.

In trying to strike the necessary balance between the two main processes of strategic decision (i.e., between making and implementing decisions), many researchers have moved their focus toward strategic implementation, which has become a growing trend in the strategic decision literature. Nonetheless, the strategic decision implementation process remains a mysterious black box, and researchers are still looking for an answer to the challenging question of “What are the core activities in implementing strategic decisions?” Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to plug this gap in the literature by conducting an extensive review of the literature on strategic decision implementation to understand this process better. The present research revealed three phases for conducting the SD implementation process and identified a number of factors inside each phase. Moreover, the paper proposed several future research avenues and implications for both researchers and managers.

This 4-year study examines the effect of strategic decision speed upon subsequent firm performance and identifies environmental and organizational characteristics that relate to decision speed. We draw upon strategic decision-making theory and organization theory to propose that strategic decision speed mediates the relation between environmental and organizational characteristics and performance. Measures of business environment, organization structure, strategic decision speed, and firm performance (growth and profitability) were collected from 318 CEOs from 1996 to 2000. Structural equation modeling confirmed that fast strategic decision-making predicts subsequent firm growth and profit and mediates the relation of dynamism, munificence, centralization, and formalization with firm performance.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how characteristics of decision-makers influence internationalization strategies within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a particular focus on the strategic decision-making process (SDMP). Design/methodology/approach – This work is based on a sample of 165 decision-makers of SMEs, using hierarchical multiple regression to examine the relationship between the dimensions studied. Findings – The results of a regression analysis suggest that decision-makers tend to follow a more rational SDMP depending on their education level and risk attitude, and the firm’s past international performance. At the same time, the political behaviour of the decision-maker emerges as a character associated with their risk attitude and need for achievement, and it is negatively influenced by age. Originality/value – This research contributes to the growing literature on SMEs, combining the field of analysis of SDMP with that of international strategy. Moreover, unlike previous studies, which have focused on the top management team, managers, CEOs, or entrepreneurs, this study analyses the characteristics and behaviour of decision-makers.

This study considers the mediating role of top management teams’ (TMTs) behavioral integration in exploring the relationship between the strategic decision-making process (SDMP; procedural rationality and constructive political behavior) and sustainable decision performance (decision quality and decision satisfaction). Survey data totaling 580 from the TMTs of the science and technology enterprises from first-tier cities in China were analyzed through structural equation modeling. The results indicate a positive influence of procedural rationality and constructive political behavior on sustainable decision quality and satisfaction. Behavioral integration appeared to mediate the nexus between the sustainable decision-making process and strategic decision performance. By categorizing the SDMP into two dimensions, a complete and explicit concept of the SDMP is reached, which permits practitioners to aim investments of a critical resource in realizing the full potential of decision performance in the sustainable decision performance.

Purpose This study aims to explore the influence of top management team international experience on international strategic decision-making rationality and, subsequently, its effect on decision effectiveness (decision performance). Design/methodology/approach This analysis is based on survey data of small- and medium-sized international Pakistani firms operating in the IT industry. Findings Results show that top management team international experience is positively related to international strategic decision-making rationality, and the latter partially mediates the international experience – decision effectiveness relationship. Research limitations/implications The study is based on data collected from a single industry and focuses on an international decision that occurred within a time-frame of previous four years. Practical implications Findings suggest that international firms, when composing their top management teams, should favor the inclusion of internationally experienced managers. Originality/value The study of the influence of international experience on the decision-making process in general and decision-making rationality in particular has been largely neglected in extant literature. This paper highlights one way through which the international experience of the top management team as a whole relates to the effectiveness of international decisions. The paper also advances emergent managerial cognition literature focusing on the top management team and not individual decision makers.