Search results

Research shows that teams often fail to surface and use unique information to evaluate decision alternatives. Under a condition known as the hidden profile, each member uniquely possesses a critical clue needed to uncover the superior solution. Failure to share and adequately evaluate this information will result in poor decision quality. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of the devil's advocacy technique on the decision quality of hidden profile teams.

In order to mitigate this team decision‐making bias, the present study utilizes experimental research to examine the impact of the devil's advocacy technique on the decision quality of hidden profile teams.

Results show that devil's advocacy groups achieved higher decision quality than groups under free discussion. However, devil's advocacy teams also had higher levels of affective conflict. As a result, while they selected the best solution, devil's advocacy introduced conditions that may hinder the solution's implementation

Similar experiments with advocacy techniques suggest that the positive effect on decision quality found here may be reduced in the presence of stronger hidden profiles.

While the devil's advocacy technique has the potential to uncover hidden profiles and improve group decision making, the paper recommends that managers use this technique only in teams with strong critical thinking norms that foster constructive conflict.

To the authors' knowledge, no study has examined the impact of devil's advocacy in groups where information is not shared equally prior to deliberations.

Decision-making in human resources management is done at both the micro and macro level of organizations. Unfortunately, the decisions at each level are often executed without consideration of the other, and current theory reflects this issue. In response to a call for integration of micro- and macro-level processes by Huselid and Becker (2011), we review the extant literature on strategic human resources and high-performance work systems to provide recommendations for both research and practice. We aimed to contribute to the literature by proposing the incorporation of the situation awareness literature into the high-performance work systems framework to encourage the alignment of human resources efforts. In addition, we provide practical recommendations for integrating situation awareness and strategic decision-making. We discuss a process for the employment of situation awareness in organizations that might not only streamline human resources management but also result in more effective decisions. Additional considerations include implications for teams, boundary conditions (e.g., individual differences), and measurement.

Suggests that one reason for the failure of many businesses during the first ten years could be due to management inflexibility. It has been discovered that escalating commitment and “blinkered vision” have been the cause of many disasters. Suggests that the use of devil′s advocacy may provide a solution.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how legitimizers invest in their approach to meet the suspicion of being a one‐sided advocate.

A multiple case study of four public sector decisions, based on a comparative argumentation analysis of two consulting reports in each case, one written by a legitimizer and one by a devil's advocate. The findings of the document analysis are triangulated with author interviews.

Consultants acting as legitimizers are often suspected of being political allies of a decision maker. To neutralize their reputation as hired guns, these consultants invest in being seen as impartial by making their research approaches transparent and their argumentation balanced to increase their credibility in the eyes of stakeholders, which is necessary to execute their central task: legitimizing a major decision.

The number of four cases could limit the possible variation within the legitimizer role. Further research could therefore explore under what conditions consultants are willing to argue more one‐sidedly as “advocates”.

Practitioners, such as consultants or decision makers, can apply the approach used in this research to make their method more transparent and to balance their argumentation to get commitment from stakeholders, while legitimizing a decision.

The paper nuances the view on the legitimizer role of consultants in previous studies, by exploring how their arguments are more balanced and transparent than assumed and how they try to contribute to their clients' decision‐making process.

Research relying on laboratory protocol and case studies has demonstrated positive effects from cognitive conflict and controversy. Reported benefits have included better judgments, improved strategic decisions and a better understanding of others' positions. This study develops and assesses the psychometric properties of an instrument designed to examine decision conflict in field settings. This instrument was administered on site to 63 managers. Factors identified in the instrument were disagreement, openness, and control. Interestingly, the openness dimension was positively associated with job commitment. The control factor was inversely associated with job satisfaction.

This study uses an eye-tracking device to examine the effects of dissenting opinion on information search style and decision quality, using insights from dual-process theory. When evaluating strategic outcomes, managers not exposed to a dissenting opinion employ directed information search using System 1 (heuristic, automatic cognitive processing), leading to low-quality decisions. Providing a dissenting opinion causes managers to use System 2 (sequential information search characterized by deliberate, slow, and effortful cognitive processing), leading to higher-quality decisions. This study provides useful insights into the cognitive processes underlying managers' judgments, and the factors that influence their decisions. We conclude by discussing the critical role of dissent in business practices, and explain how dissent affects people's System 2 cognitive processes.

Today, more than ever, businesses need to improve strategy implementation. Part of achieving implementation requires strategies to be embedded in the daily activities of executors (practitioners) – thus to embed strategy in implementation. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a “lesser acknowledged” strategy type that is ill-considered by management and leadership alike. “Covert tactics” are described.

Through dialectic conversation and applying the devil’s advocacy approach to challenging embeddedness and implementation liabilities, the phenomenon of “covert tactics” was identified. Purposively selected subjects participated in the dialectic conversations. Their opinions were collected and patterns identified until their “tactics” became apparent. Another element of interest was the underlying thinking of subjects to understand what drives them to follow covert tactics.

Covert tactics are phantasmal individual ploys that employees take in response to their own micro situation. Higher-level managers are often not aware of their existence, as these tactics are not spoken about but do exist. Such managers assume the organisation’s professed strategies are pursued but are oblivious to the “real tactics” that are pursued.

The research proposes an “invisible concept” and depends on one individual view point.

Understanding and accepting the existence of covert tactics gives managers flexibility to respond.

To address their existence, there is no need to expose and oppose covert tactics, as this will make them more “invisible”. The innovative approach is to recognise their existence and align them to the organisation strategy. The quality of the strategy message was shown to be the fundamental tool that managers can use to address covert tactics by replacing the need for their existence.

Strategic decision making influences organizational performance. However, close examination of this relationship reveals a subtle paradox. It appears that the products of strategic decision making, all of which are necessary for enhanced organizational performance, do not peacefully coexist. Conflict seems to be the crux of this conundrum. As such, a better understanding of conflict's effects on strategic decision making is needed This paper integrates a multidimensional conceptualization of conflict Into a model of strategic decision making and organizational performance and develops propositions to guide empirical study of the effects of conflict on strategic decision making.

The point of departure for this chapter is a notion that firms at times find it difficult to develop their solution-oriented businesses and to have a broader understanding in their organizations of what this changed orientation really means.

The author looks into prevailing perspectives on marketing as such and creates a “map” that organizes marketing logics into a dynamic whole for value creation and change based on theoretical points of departure. Supported by this map, she tailors out a missing perspective based on a sense-making view that could be fruitful for companies to apply. It is basically to create a stronger awareness of and influence from a branding perspective (also in B2B). Based on an empirical example she points at barriers and enablers in implementing such a change of marketing perspective. She also addresses the implications of such a change on organizing and not least the connections between sales and marketing.

This chapter points forward as a way to release energy and to find direction for the development toward a solution-oriented business.

The role of managerial cognitive processes has so far been largely neglected within strategy research which examines organizational decline and recovery. Proposes that heuristics used by managers such as: availability, representativeness, adjustment and anchoring may contribute to the declining performance of the organization. Suggests that mental imagery could be used to adjust these heuristics and change the cognitive processes of the existing managers instead of replacing the top management team in declining organizations. This change in cognitive processes could help increase the ability of a declining firm to improve its performance.