Framing Strategic Decisions

Author: Paul C. Nutt

Presented by Syed Rashedul Hossen

Student ID: 6320131003
Framing Strategic Decisions
• Activists/ stakeholders find what seem to be important developments in the
se trends and events and bring them to the attention of decision makers
- making a claim
• Decision makers examine the information offered and may do their own res
earch before taking action, decision makers offer a direction that suggests w
hat type of action to take.
- direction
• This study set out to explore the impact of stakeholder claims on these dire
ctions and the success that results to find desirable practices.
Research Questions
• First, the nature of claims that capture attention were identified.

• Second, the ways in which strategic decision makers responded to cl

aims by setting directions were determined.

• Third, the research explored whether the claim types influenced the
selection and the success of the directions used by strategic decision
makers.
Building up database
• Organization settings
• had a history of successful operation
• type of decisions
▫ technology, controls, products, ser vices,
personnel policy, support services,
reorganizations, and domains
• Interviews
▫ to identify the practices used to initiate
strategic decisions
• Questionnaires
▫ to determine values the success indicators
Profiling Decisions
• The Interview Procedure.
▫ use of retrospective Triangulation of multiple
Informants responses was used to improve reliability
• Uncovering Framing Practices
▫ follows a grounded theory approach/describe the
Unfolding of understanding as cases were examined,
Describing emergent distinctions that seemed important
▫ decisions were framed by a claim
Success Measurements
• Adoption
▫ Sustained adoption: Sustained adoption" adjusts the use rate by adding the ultimate adoptions and deleting th
e ultimate rejections, making it a downstream indicator of use.
▫ Complete adoption: The "complete adoption" measure treats all partial adoptions as failures, making it a down
stream indicator of degree of use. Decisions were followed for two years after the first implementation attempt to find t
he changes needed to construct these two adoption measures.

• Value : The intrinsic value of a decision to the organization provides another success indicator. Decision with low value may
be pragmatic, and good decisions may not be used because key people object, making value an important and independent indicato
r of success. The scale anchors defined a rating of 5 as outstanding, which was assigned to decisions that made a decisive contributi
on by providing exceptional perceived quality. A rating of 1, termed poor, was assigned when a decision had no impact or merit
▫ rating scale (5 = outstanding, 4 = good, 3 = adequate, 2 = disappointing,
1 = poor)
▫ estimate-reflect-estimate (ERE) procedure was used
• Development Time: This suggests duration as a measure of success, which can be define
d as the time required for development. This would cover the period from concern or need recogn
ition to the completion of an acceptable plan to meet the need or deal with the concern.
Practices Uncovered
• Two claim origins
• Four distinct types
of claims
• Four types of directi
ons to guide solution Exploration of the decision cases
revealed four distinct types of claims that
originated internal and/or external to the
organization. After assessing stakeholder
claims, decision makers selected one of
four types of directions to guide solution
development. This traces decision
activation, showing how claims were
made and how strategic decision makers
responded to claims by setting a direction
• HYPOTHESIS 1 - When a claim has both internal and external origins, strategic
decision making efforts are more apt to be successful.
internal claim - longer duration and fewer complete adoptions.
External claims - the same rate of complete adoptions but had a shorter duration.
Claims with both - had more complete adoptions, at a slight loss in efficiency
• claim origin had little effect on the success of a strategic decision m
aking effort
• HYPOTHESIS 2 - The type of claim (performance, adaptation, innovation, or conflict) will i
nfluence the success of a strategic decision making effort.
• Performance - 65-percent sustained adoptions, 55- percent complete adoptions, good strategic decisions
• Conflict - 59-percent sustained adoptions, 46- percent complete adoptions, adequate to good decisions, with some
inefficiency
• Innovative - 57-percent sustained adoptions, 43- percent complete adoptions, above adequate
• Adaptation - 62-percent sustained adoptions, 41- percent complete adoptions, above adequate
• These findings suggest that the nature of a claim creates a predisposition toward succe
ss or failure.
Direction
After stakeholders identified concerns and needs, strategic decision makers examined their claims and set directions t
hat suggested how to respond. Various types of directions were used: some allowed for an unconstrained search and ot
hers limited search by suggesting a solution. Analyses of the cases found that strategic decision makers used four types
of direction to guide strategy development, called vision, problem, goal, and justification.

a) Vision: Direction was suggesting what to do to deal provided with

a ready made plan.

b) Problem: Direction stemmed from the concern or difficulty to be overcome

.

c) Goal: Direction was given by expected results.

d) Justification: Direction was provided by giving a rationale for action, takin

g steps to justify norms used to specify the performance gap to be closed.
• HYPOTHESIS 3 - HYPOTHESIS 3. The success of a strategic decision making effort depends on the typ
e of direction offered (vision, problem, goal, or justification) and the scope of search that each suggests (unconstra
ined, focused, or constrained).
• Vision - 58-percent sustained adoptions, 41- percent complete adoptions, 9 months, adequate to good
• Problem - 56-percent sustained adoptions, 44- percent complete adoptions, 10.8 months adequate to good decisions,
• Justification - 96-percent sustained adoptions, 92- percent complete adoptions, good
• Goal - 70-percent sustained adoptions, 58- percent complete adoptions, 8 months
• The findings summarized in Table 4 paint a dim picture for imposing ready made plans and for problem analysis. However, thes
e less successful type of directions were observed in nearly two-thirds of the cases. Strategic decision makers seem prone to use d
irections that lower success
Qualifying Use and Success
• The associations of claim features with directions provide two types of qualifications. Conditions
of use are given by directions that tend to follow particular claim categories and claim types.
• Applied a chi-square test to determine the statistical significance of t
he associations of claim features with directions.
• Conditions of Use: The chi-square tests found an association for claim origin-claim type,
claim origin-direction, and claim type-direction
• Conflict claims - more likely when a claim arose both internally and externally.
• Adaptation claims - more apt to arise from claims that have internal and external
origins
• Performance claims -likely to arise internally or externally, but not both.

• Justification direction - applied nearly twice as often when claims arose both inter
nal and external.
• Problem directions - used more often when claims arose internally
• Goal and vision- directions were equally likely for external, internal, and internal
and external claim sources
Qualifying Use and Success
• Conditions for success
▫ The two-way interactions of
"claim origin- direction" and
"claim type-direction" were found
to have significant effects.
▫ The "claim origin-claim type
" two- way interaction and the
three-way interaction
(origin- type-direction) were not
significant for any of the success
indicators and were not considered
further
Vision directions
• Vision directions led to decision making efforts that had similar patterns of
success-no matter what the claims origin
• Claim origin did not improve the timeliness of a strategic decision, its value,
nor its prospects of adoption.
• Claim type have an influence on the success of vision directed strategic deci
sion making efforts
• Claims about innovation used to justify a vision took several times longer,
with significantly fewer adoptions and less value.
• Claims calling for innovation, in which the vision described innovative, wer
e not successful.
• Overall, vision directions produced poor results regardless of the types of cl
aim that attracted attention
Problem directions
• Problem directions seem to produce poor results when a claim had external
origins, adoptions fell, value declined, but time was shortened.
• The increased efficiency of the decision process implied urgency in claims t
hat have external origins-produced an increase in sustained adoptions in a v
ery short development period.
• Problem directions that called attention to the need to innovate produced hi
gh adoption that had low value.
• Decision makers have difficulties separating the good ideas from the bad, d
ecision making efforts were unsuccessful. The level of success did not impro
ve to that realized by goal or justification directions.
• Problem directions seem ill advised.
Goal directions
• Goal directed strategic decision making efforts had better results when resp
onding to claims that have an internal and an external origin.
• Goal directed efforts also worked quite well when claims were advanced as
performance shortfalls or calls to reduce conflict.
• Time requirements increased when performance claims were translated int
o goals, adoptions improved and decisions had high value when goal directi
ons were used.
• Innovations called for something new, when articulated as a direction made
the goal seem like a vision. The goal was articulated in terms of an innovati
ve result.
▫ easier to use a goal direction to deal with an adaptation claim than an innovation claim.
Justification directions
• Development time was doubled when claims arose both internally and exter
nally origins, and complete adoptions declined for external claims.
• The extra time required and risk entailed when working with both internal a
nd external stakeholders may explain these results.
• When claims stemmed from adaptations, justification directed decisions ex
perienced a sharp decline in complete adoptions.
▫ Claims for an adaptation followed by a justification direction reduced complete ad
options.
▫ Claims with innovation increased the development time for justification direction
strategic decisions.
▫ Claims with conflict in creased the development time for justification directed stra
tegic decisions.
• All types of claims were easily managed by a justification direction,
with very successful outcomes.
Conclusions
• This research set out to discover practices used to respond to stakeholder activism, lo
oking for best practice. An examination of 352 strategic decisions found that:
• claim origin had little influence on success.
▫ some claim types were more successfully which are the Claims that suggested cont
roversy or solutions (adaptations) or both controversy and solutions (unsatisfied d
emands) were less successful than claims that identified what needs improvement
(performance short falls).
• The images evoked by a claim that stems from an "adaptation“ or an "unsatisfied de
mand“ seems responsible for the increased chance of failure.
• Decision makers who carefully determined what needed to be done, and why, were fo
und to be more successful. Because some directions create favorable images and avoid
unfavorable ones.
• Adaptation claims tend to produce vision directions in which a solution was offered.
• Decision makers with a vision were much more successful when a justification directi
on was used that made needs explicit before suggesting the vision as a remedy.
Questions for further analysis:
1. Process of framing strategic problem is same fro
m all types of organization“? If not, does it affect d
ecision outcome?
2. Does big data have any influence on removing i
nformation asymmetry to stakeholders and how d
oes it affect decision landscape?