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The purpose of this paper is to test whether Top Management Team (TMT) international experience is positively associated to international information acquisition from managerial international contacts and whether international information partially mediates the positive relationship between TMT international experience and international strategic decision rationality.

Data were collected through a survey of small- and medium-sized of international Pakistani software firms.

This study reports that TMT international experience-international strategic decision rationality relationship to international information acquisition and that this information acquisition partially mediates the TMT international experience, i.e. international strategic decision rationality relationship.

When selecting the members of their TMT, international firms should pay careful attention to their international experience.

Previous research demonstrates that TMT international experience has a positive effect on international strategic decision rationality and that this effect is transferred to performance. This study shows that the positive effect of TMT international experience is derived from the personal international knowledge and the international information collected from managers’ international contacts. This ability to make rational international strategic decisions could have a positive effect on decision-making and firm performance.

Conceptualizes a paradigm for strategic decision success that is based on a formal, managerial decision‐making process, advanced as part of a set of managerial attitudes towards the process and towards the decision itself. The resultant typology of strategic decisions is related to four sets of real‐world applications to validate the paradigm and to confirm the hypothesis that a formal managerial decision‐making process is conducive to strategic decision success. Concludes that an attainable objective set in an open, decision‐making process and pursued through a judgemental process in quest of a satisficing outcome is more likely to succeed.

Research on strategic decision‐making has emphasized the importance of team decision‐making as it brings the benefits of synergy. Literature on healthcare is silent on the role of professional doctors in the strategic decision‐making process and their impact on decision outcomes. The purpose of the present paper is to empirically examine the outcomes of decisions when physician executives were involved in strategic decision‐making process in healthcare organizations.

Using a structured survey instrument, this paper gathered data from 361 senior executives from 109 hospitals in USA and analyzed the data using regression techniques on whether the presence of physicians in strategic decision‐making processes enhanced decision quality, commitment, and understanding.

Results showed the presence of professional doctors in the decision‐making process enhances commitment and decision quality in healthcare organizations.

Only the healthcare industry was considered. Self‐report measures may have some inherent social desirability bias.

This study contributes to both practicing managers as well as to strategic management literature. This study suggests that healthcare administrators need to engage physician executives in strategic decision‐making to have successful decision outcomes.

To the extent strategic decision‐making process is similar in other industries, the findings can be generalizable across other industries.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of the rationality of the strategic decision‐making process between decision magnitude of impact and the quality of the decision process output.

From analysis of alternative research approaches, a field survey seems to be the most appropriate methodological choice. This is a field study of real strategic decision‐making process rather than an artificial setting. The questionnaire consists of items measuring the variables of primary interest; namely the independent, mediator, and dependent variables. The study was conducted in Pinang, Malaysia, involving small, medium, and large‐sized private manufacturing firms. To test and eliminate ambiguous or biased items and to improve the format, both for ease of understanding and to facilitate data analysis, a pilot study was conducted by computing Cronbach's reliability alpha.

The results of regression analysis indicate that the decision magnitude of impact is significantly associated with the level of rationality in the decision‐making process. The results of hierarchical regression analyses indicate that the extent of rationality in the decision‐making process is able to significantly change the total variations in the decision‐ making quality explained by magnitude of impact.

The complex nature of strategic decision‐making process as a research topic places limitations on this study, particularly in the area of sample selection and data availability and collection. The major sample selection at the manufacturing firms is difficult because a firm's perception in terms of strategic decisions may not be the same, thus it is not easy to ascertain relevant sample characteristics.

Findings of this study indicate that a better quality decision is achieved through a rational process. Thus, organizations should encourage greater use of rationality in the decision‐making process, especially when the decision that is going to be made has more impact on the various parts of the organization or it is a strategic decision.

This study is believed to be the first to test the mediating impact of rationality of the strategic decision‐making process. This study was carried out among Malaysian manufacturing firms, and therefore comparison of its results to the findings in other countries may suggest the influence of other factors such as ideology, belief, and culture on strategic decision‐making processes. This in turn may open up a promising avenue for future research.

Many research studies in operations management (OM) and strategic management (SM) investigate how different kinds of firm decisions regarding business relationships can positively affect a firm's operations performance, resource endowment, and competitive position. Very few studies exist, however, that have attempted to illuminate the actual behaviors of managers when making strategic decisions about their intercompany relationships; rather, most existing studies focus on normative theory. The purpose of this paper is to explore linkages between the “set” of strategic objectives that managers are willing to pursue, the “set” of networking decisions they make, and the “set” of business agreements they sign.

In order to investigate and explore actual managerial behaviors with respect to networking strategy, the study adopts a field research approach based on multiple case studies. Data were collected on 13 business agreements from three manufacturing firms in the mechatronics industry in Italy. Within‐case and cross‐case analyses are used for theory‐building purposes.

The empirical data allow identification four different archetypes of networking strategy. The archetypes capture different connections between the “set” of strategic objectives that managers are willing to pursue, the “set” of networking decisions that they consider, and the “set” of strategic agreements that they actually adopt. Specifically, the identified archetypes are named multi‐alignment, multi‐agreement (diversification), multi‐objective, and mono‐alignment (focus), and these are related to different association multiplicities among objectives, decisions, and agreements. The implications related to these archetypes are three‐fold. First, the multi‐alignment archetype suggests a focus not just on one kind of agreement, but also on the firm's overall portfolio of agreements, in order to facilitate understanding of how different kinds of agreements and networking decisions can play a complementary role in achieving a firm's predetermined business objective/s. Second, the multi‐agreement (diversification) archetype suggests that managers can minimize the risk of losing the potentiality of network collaboration by undertaking different kinds of agreements for the same strategic objective. Third, the mono‐alignment (focus) and multi‐objective archetypes suggest that just one agreement can potentially pursue one or multiple strategic objectives, and thus can allow managers to minimize the cost of managing several networking relationships.

The originality of this study lies in its exploration of linkages between objectives, decisions and networking agreements. Unlike most of the existing papers in OM and SM, however, it does not specifically focus on: vertical or horizontal relationships; operations performance (positioning school) or resource endowment (resource‐based view) strategic objectives; or any specific kind of agreement contract (outsourcing, alliance, joint venture, etc.). This paper presents four different networking strategy archetypes that represent different ways of matching a “set” of networking decisions, strategic objectives and business agreements. These are not related to either vertical or horizontal relationships, operations performance or resource endowment objectives, or any specific contract agreement form.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which strategic intelligence is utilised within the South African long‐term insurance industry and whether it could be used to identify opportunities or threats within the global environment to remain competitive, create greater innovation, and corporate advantage.

The approach of this paper is to obtain the qualitative views and opinions of strategic decision makers, on an executive managerial level within the South African long‐term insurance industry, on their organizations' use of strategic intelligence.

There are marked differences in the conformity and usage of strategic intelligence and its components between the organizations surveyed, with a measurable difference between large and small organizations, however, it is generally viewed that the use of a strategic intelligence framework could greatly enhance decision making.

Data collection was limited to the 82 long‐term insurance companies which were registered with the South African Financial Services Board, with a focus on the organizations listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange within the Life Assurance Sector, within which a final response rate of 36.1 per cent was achieved, including the 100 per cent response rate from the six listed organizations.

The paper identifies the extent to which strategic intelligence is utilised in the South African long‐term insurance industry, and identifies the benefits or problems that are experienced by implementing and using strategic intelligence as an input to the strategic management process and what value strategic intelligence adds in the decision‐making process.

The identification and utilisation of the most important factors of a strategic intelligence framework will greatly enhance global corporate decision making and result in competitive advantage and constant innovation within the South African business environment.

The research into SME”s is often presented as quite distinct from strategy or general management research. This paper examines the literature on Strategic Decision Making (SDM) process, drawing in some findings from the SME sector which show some key similarities. The paper makes proposals for research into SDM processes in SME’s, which would clarify both the general management theory and theory relating to SME’s.

The confusion over what counts as “strategic” is widely acknowledged to be a problem for both research and practice. The paper aims to develop a robust definition of “strategic decisions” and a classifying tool that distinguishes them from grand tactical, tactical, and other organizational decisions.

An extensive literature review focused on the leading journals is carried out. Articles having “strategic decision” in the abstract are retrieved from EBSCO Host and ProQuest One Academic databases. Definitions of “strategic decisions” are critically assessed and classified to form the trigger and basis of the development of new definition.

The literature review identifies five approaches by which strategic decisions are defined, and their limitations are exposed. The proposed definitions of “strategic,” grand tactical, and tactical decisions, and the novel classification tree, used to distinguish those decisions, are shown to be more accurate and robust than those previously offered in the literature.

New definitions of “strategic,” grand tactical, and tactical decisions are offered; and a new classifying tool is developed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the institutional context impacts on strategic decision implementation in an emerging market. Previous studies of strategic decision making in emerging markets have not examined decision implementation. Given the changes in the world economy during the past decade, and in particular the growing importance of emerging market multinationals, this is an increasingly salient issue.

Questionnaires were delivered to general managers in all Jordanian publicly quoted industrial firms. A 53.7 per cent response rate was achieved. The structure of the questionnaire built on earlier studies in developed markets and, in particular, Alexander’s (1985) seminal study.

The strategic decision implementation problems which are found in Jordan are similar to those found in developed economies. However, external shocks are a more important influence on strategic decision implementation that has been found to be the case in developed economies. The success of companies in the emerging market of Jordan is associated with the frequency and extent of their experience of strategic decision implementation problems. Formal strategic planning helps Jordanian firms to deal with these problems more effectively.

It was difficult to explore some of the “why” questions related to the implementation of strategic decisions in the sampled firms since most respondents agreed to complete the questionnaire but not to be interviewed. Single, rather than multiple, respondents participated in the research. A larger sample size would be desirable, although the results are statistically robust.

The results will help managers to make and implement strategic decisions, both in the context of market entry and market maintenance, in the Middle East and in other emerging markets.

Context (institutional) factors are found to be less influential in the case of decision implementation than strategic decision making itself. This is the first study of the problems associated with the implementation of strategic decisions in Jordanian firms and one of the first in any emerging market.

This article posits a paradigm of levels of success for strategic decision outcomes. A high level of strategic decision success is normally preceded by a positive strategic gap in which the strengths of the organization clearly outweigh its weaknesses. Three comprehensive cases are set forth as practical applications to illustrate and confirm the paradigm of levels of strategic decision success. Philip Morris’s decision in 1984 to diversify into the food processing industry is proffered as the epitome of a highly successful strategic choice. General Motors’ decision in 1978 to reinvent the corporation is advanced as a hallmark of a marginally successful strategic outcome. And Walt Disney’s decision in 1996 to acquire Capital Cities/ABC is cited as an example of a strategic choice with an indeterminately successful outcome. The conclusions in all three cases are supported by current research findings.