Decisions,judgement and style

This paper, one of a series which have already appeared in previous issues, focuses on the role of people, their judgments and their styles in the process of making and taking decisions concerning the future; that future and the decisions which will shape it being part of the complex strategic planning process. The author does not deal with decision analysis but concentrates his analysis upon the delicate balance which is maintained between what Sir Geoffrey Vickers calls ‘the art of judgement’ and the quantifiable elements of decision. The author rightly makes a distinction between decision-making: and decision-taking: this distinction accurately mirrors the long and often complex consultation process which occurs in almost all organizations before a decision is actually taken. The author's analysis concentrates upon the important effect which ‘judgement styles’ can have upon an organization and its planning process. Indeed, this paper suggests quite positively that judgment styles have an important and indeed crucial effect upon the view of the future which an organization will regard as preferable as well as influencing the manner in which the planning process will operate.     

Sustaining growth in the modern enterprise: A case study

This paper describes a model developed to demonstrate the constancy of and virtual need for change in a sustaining organization. Several executives from different organizations were interviewed in order to capture the dynamics structure. Essential variables were listed and causal modeling was used to obtain important relationships. Equations of interrelationships among the variables were developed. Validation of the model was performed at two levels: (1) validation of the structure as suggested by the causal modeling process using a new methodology and (2) validation of the emergent behavior by using case studies of industries which have different time rates of evolution.     

The shadow dance of political climate: Engagement in political behavior in local government authorities

In describing the processes of organizations as political acts, we are not making a moral judgment; we simply are making an observation about a process. Bacharach and Lawler, 1980, p. 2.This study focuses on the ways a perceived political climate influences engagement in political behavior during a national election period. By using social cognitive theory as a way to predict behavior in organizations, we study how managers' engagement in political behavior is shaped. A qualitative research methodology was used. Sixteen interviews with managers were conducted in various local authorities during the 2015 election campaign for Israel's parliament. Participants perceived an intensification of political climate during the pre-election period, which they attributed to a significant connection between electoral and intraorganizational politics. Additionally, a perceived organizational political climate intensifies engagement in a range of political behaviors throughout an organization and is connected with an administrative role. The findings suggest that managers use “political capital” that the election period provides to influence and manipulate their organization's future and their own.     

Brain circulation, diaspora, and international competitiveness

Drawing upon findings of several studies, this paper examines the interrelationships between brain circulation or “triangular human talent flow”, ethnic diasporas (specifically, the Chinese and Indian diasporas), and a country’s international competitiveness. Globalization, the lowering of immigration and emigration barriers to the movement of people, and the emerging concept of boundaryless careers have all contributed to the phenomenon of brain circulation. Brain circulation replaces the traditional concepts of brain drain versus brain gain because of the growing mobility of human talent across international boundaries. Implications, both theoretical and practical, are then discussed.     

A view of MBO in today's management environment

The evolution of management practice would appear to have been conditioned by the successive embraces of a whole range of management movements—starting with the scientific management movement of F W Taylor through to the social science movement which is prominent today. In the 1960's the one that caught the imagination of many managers was the management by objectives movement. A characteristic of all of these movements is that they rarely seem able to sustain the promise of their initial impact because they are essentially bosses' movements rather than popular movements. The ideology of MBO does however come close to that of a genuine social movement if only it is interpreted and applied correctly. The convergence of MBO and the Organisation Development movement gives promise that together they will be seen as an acceptable response to the changing expectations and values of the participants in today's large and complex businesses.     

Corporate planning—A functional approach

The experience and arts of 295 Chief Executive Officers have been utilized for the study's findings. The analyses suggest that a firm's effective strategic-mix of major organizational functions would depend upon the nature of the particular circumstances which the organization faces. The different organizational settings are formed in the study and the effective strategic-mix of organizational functions have been statistically formulated on the basis of the Chief Executive Officers' judgement of what constitutes the effective strategic-mix of functions for their firm's overall corporate strategy. The relative influences of the General Management function and the functional managements (Marketing, Finance, Production, R & D, etc.) upon the overall corporate strategy have been the inputs for the derivation of the effective strategic-mix of functions. Environment, technology and firm-size have been considered for the formation of the different organizational settings. The study's findings not only provide what the different strategic-mixes for the different organizational settings are but also provide a working analytical framework for comprehensive analyses for the identification of the functions critical to the accomplishment of the overall corporate objectives and goals.     

Strategic planning as an organizational change process—Some guidelines from practice

Learning to cope with the problems and uncertainties created by today's changing business environment is a task which faces ever company. Coping with the challenge of change is not just a question of adapting or reacting to the changes, it may also involve taking new initiatives in relation to the environment itself in order to exploit the opportunities which exist.A company may need to make fundamental adjustments to its philosophy, strategies, organization and practices in order to meet the newer demands of the environment. A prime difficulty is that companies are rarely in a position to start from scratch, they have existing organizational arrangements, power distributions, well established strategies and vested interests all of which tend to resist any kind of change which is likely to upset the ‘status quo’. They also have to overcome outdated beliefs and norms if they are to progress.This article considers the use of a modified approach to strategic planning as a mechanism for helping a company to acquire the norms, organization and strategies needed to cope with today's business environment. It is based on experience gained in helping to re-organize business enterprises engaged in textiles, steel tube manufacture, light engineering, distribution (world wide) and vehicle sales and servicing and also the Government of Jersey, Channel Islands.     

Information for more effective strategic planning

This paper illustrates how an entity—called a ‘strategic data base’ (SDB)—can be developed to provide important information in a form which makes it directly useful in various phases of a strategic planning process. The strategic data bases are concise statements of the organizational and environmental situations which define the organization's most salient problems, opportunities, and constraints. These SDBs may be developed through a participative process involving tasks forces which are made up of managers representing the diverse interests of the organization. The strategic data bases thereby become important informational inputs to planning which can directly serve to enhance the quality of planning decisions. Moreover, the process of developing SDBs can be an important learning device for those middle managers who can become involved in such a process at a much earlier point in their career than that at which they might normally engage substantively in the organization's overall strategic choice process.     

The social and psychological causes of inflation

It appears that it is no longer possible for the rate of inflation in Britain and other advanced industrial economies to be controlled by the traditional macro- economic reglators, at least within the limits imposed by other politico-economic goals (such as the maintenance of an acceptable level of unemployment). This has led many to look for explanations of inflation beyond economic analysis: in the psychology of wage and salary earners; in the changing class structure of our society; in the changing loci of power and means of exercising power; and in our systems of labour relations and pay determination.The author's organization (PEP—Political and Economic Planning) have just come to the end of a programme of research concerned with the contribution that non- economic perspectives can make to an understanding of the process of inflation. The author has been focusing upon the pressure on pay and has carried out two studies designed to explore the forces contributing to the apparent increase in the demand for pay increases and the conviction that these are legitimate among wage and salary earners. This article describes his findings.     

Modeling and Managing the Percentage of Satisfied Customers in Hidden and Revealed Waiting Line Systems

We perform an analysis of various queueing systems with an emphasis on estimating a single performance metric. This metric is defined to be the percentage of customers whose actual waiting time was less than their individual waiting time threshold. We label this metric the Percentage of Satisfied Customers (PSC.) This threshold is a reflection of the customers' expectation of a reasonable waiting time in the system given its current state. Cases in which no system state information is available to the customer are referred to as “hidden queues.” For such systems, the waiting time threshold is independent of the length of the waiting line, and it is randomly drawn from a distribution of threshold values for the customer population. The literature generally assumes that such thresholds are exponentially distributed. For these cases, we derive closed form expressions for our performance metric for a variety of possible service time distributions. We also relax this assumption for cases where service times are exponential and derive closed form results for a large class of threshold distributions. We analyze such queues for both single and multi‐server systems. We refer to cases in which customers may observe the length of the line as “revealed” queues.“ We perform a parallel analysis for both single and multi‐server revealed queues. The chief distinction is that for these cases, customers may develop threshold values that are dependent upon the number of customers in the system upon their arrival. The new perspective this paper brings to the modeling of the performance of waiting line systems allows us to rethink and suggest ways to enhance the effectiveness of various managerial options for improving the service quality and customer satisfaction of waiting line systems. We conclude with many useful insights on ways to improve customer satisfaction in waiting line situations that follow directly from our analysis.     

Financial Market Globalization,Symmetry‐Breaking,and Endogenous Inequality of Nations

This paper investigates the effects of financial market globalization on the inequality of nations. The world economy consists of inherently identical countries, which differ only in their levels of capital stock. Each country is represented by the standard overlapping generations model, modified only to incorporate credit market imperfection. An integration of financial markets affects the set of stable steady states, as it changes the balance between the equalizing force of the diminishing returns technology and the unequalizing force of the wealth‐dependent borrowing constraint. The model is tractable enough to allow for a complete characterization of the stable steady states. In the absence of the international financial market, the world economy has a unique steady state, which is symmetric and stable. In the presence of the international financial market, symmetry‐breaking occurs under some conditions. That is, the symmetric steady state loses its stability and stable asymmetric steady states come to exist. In the stable asymmetric steady states, the world economy is endogenously divided into the rich and poor countries; the borrowing constraints are binding in the poor but not in the rich; the world output is smaller, the rich are richer and the poor are poorer in any of the stable asymmetric steady states than in the (unstable) symmetric steady state.     

Setting goals in a professional service firm

Given the complex structure and rapid rate of change of today's society, it is critically important that a professional service firm properly set and periodically monitor its goals. This article describes how one consultant organization has formalized this process. The experience has led to important modifications of their goals. Perhaps a greater benefit is that the process of formalization has been a substantial aid in identifying and sensitizing individuals to crucial issues, in generating and evaluating alternatives, in isolating and resolving conflicts of judgement and priorities, and in communicating among members of the management of the firm concerned.     

The nature of the work-leisure relationship

This article is concerned with the development of an analytical framework, developed from a social psychological perspective, for viewing the nature of the work ethic and its changed character in contemporary industrial life. Toward this end, an analysis of how a typical Western person's attitudes toward work and leisure are formed is presented. The interdependent influence of this attitude upon the worker's mental health is examined. The influence of social evolution in Western culture seems to be altering work-leisure attitudes and this phenomenon is studied. Finally, based on the previous analysis, social policy recommendations for increasing the self-actualizing potential of both work and leisure are offered.     

A Warning Zone Method for the Multiperiod Cost Variance Investigation Problem

This paper develops a warning zone approach to make variance investigation decisions for a multiperiod process. The assumed cost generation process varies between an in-control and out-of-control state. These states cannot be directly observed, but must be inferred from the reported cost variances. Using the warning zone method of inference, the manager investigates the process whenever an upper threshold is exceeded or a lower threshold is exceeded for two consecutive periods. A four-state Markov chain models the resulting decision process. Steady state probabilities are derived for this chain and are used to obtain explicit formulas for the effectiveness and efficiency of the decision process. These formulas permit computation of the cost savings attainable by the warning zone method. Compared to other decision rules, the warning zone method is much simpler than the theoretically optimal Bayesian revision method, but uses more information than the Markovian control limit method. Numerical comparison of results shows that the warning zone method usually captures most of the available cost savings, even in cases where the Markovian control limit method does not perform well.     

Environmental scanning—Does it help the chief executive?

Firms must correctly identify and analyze the nature of their strategic environments, their strategic oppurtunities and problems, and, formulate the precise strategy sets for corporate strategy for accomplishing the chosen organizational objectives and goals. This articles reports on a survey. Chief executives of industrial corporations provided their insights and experience (see Appendix I) and the findings are analyzed for the implications for other practising chief executives. The nature of environment which is strategic to a particular firm has considerable influence upon the firm's choice of strategies. The correct understanding of this influence is critical to the firm's organizational effectiveness. Only after a correct understanding can the chief executive formulate the precise mix of strategies and meld them in the strategy sets of the corporate strategy.The major findings indicate that the levels of difficulty experienced in accomplishing firm's objectives and goals depend upon the perceived nature of complexity, unpredictability and dynamism of the firm's strategic environments. The levels of clarity on strategic issues also depend upon these same attributes of environments. The formulation of strategy sets of corporate strategy are indicative of the ways by which the chief executive and his management team expect the firm to achieve its major objectives and goals by monitoring the strategy sets to keep in tune with the changing realities of the firm's strategic environments. General management, marketing and finance, were the vital group strategies, followed by production and research and development. External relations, personnel and procurement were the least important strategies. Firms operating in simple and stable environments experienced the least difficulty in achieving corporate goals, while firms in dynamic and complex environments experienced the greatest difficulty.     

The impact of a waiting-time threshold in overflow systems with impatient customers

This paper analyzes the performance of call centers with impatient customers, two levels of support, and an overflow mechanism. Waiting calls from the front-office queue – if not reneging – are sent to the back office if at least one back-office agent is available and if a certain threshold t on the waiting time is reached. We approximate such systems via a continuous-time Markov chain that allows for overflow immediately upon arrival. Two different approaches for the derivation of the respective probability of an overflow are developed. Numerical results compare the reliability of these Markovian performance approximations for different parameter settings. The impact of the threshold t on different performance measures is shown dependent on the impatience of customers.     

The Efficacy of Action at a Distance as a Control Mechanism in the Construction Industry When a Trust Relationship Breaks Down: an Illustrative Case Study

A paper published by one of the authors (Woodward and Squires, 1996), described a situation where the accounting information system used by a geographically‐remote project manager to report progress on a project to his headquarters proved inadequate for that task. The inadequacy was particularly relevant in the reported case, in that the object project was one of considerable significance to the company, being the largest and most complex it had ever undertaken. While the earlier paper concentrated initially upon identifying the perceived shortcomings in the organization’s accounting information system, and subsequently upon delineating the proposal for a ‘workable’ solution thereto, the purpose of the present paper is rather to analyse the situation earlier reported, in the context of a perceived breakdown in the trust relationship existing between the project manager and his superior, the company’s managing director. The managing director trusted his subordinate, although it seems apparent retrospectively that the trusting relationship existing was abused. While the underpinning precept of trust is thus fundamental to the present analysis, it is additionally necessary to utilize as relevant concepts: the veracity of the company’s control mechanism (via the concept of action at a distance) to adequately report what was happening remote from headquarters; the assumption that the project manager, as agent, had the potential to abuse his position; and, finally, that the project manager’s professional affiliation was probably insufficiently strong to sustain self‐control based upon ‘clan’ considerations. It also emerges from the analysis that multiple, rather than single, trust relationships were at work.