The purpose of this study was to test for a relationship between locus of control and participation in strategic decision making. The research model included the variables of gender, locus of control, job-work involvement and preference for participative environment as possible influences on team member participation in strategic decision making. Another feature of the model was the proposed three-way interaction effect on member participation. This interaction included member job-work involvement, member preference for participation and leader locus of control.

A significant number of scientific projects pursuing large scale, complex investigations involve dispersed research teams, which conduct a large part or their work virtually. Virtual Research Environments (VREs), cyberinfrastructure that facilitates coordinated activities amongst dispersed scientists, thus provide a rich context to study organizational evolution. Due to the constantly evolving nature of technologies, it is important to understand how teams of scientists, system developers, and managers respond to critical incidents. Critical events are organizational situations that trigger strategic decision making to adjust structure or redirect processes in order to maintain balance or improve an already functioning system. This study examines two prominent VREs: The United States Virtual Astronomical Observatory (US-VAO) and the HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) in order to understand how these environments evolve through critical events and strategic choices. Communication perspectives lend themselves well to a study of VRE development and evolution because of the central role occupied by communication technologies in both the functionality and management of VREs. Using the grounded theory approach, this study uses organizational reports to trace how critical events and their resulting strategic choices shape these organizations over time. The study also explores how disciplinary demands influence critical events.

Urbanization is a major factor causing unsupported perceptions within the traditional vision offorest management. Urbanization has led to a reconstruction on forest owners’ economicdependency on the forestry. This contributes in emigration from rural areas to bigger cities.To understand how distant forest owners, manage their forest they need to be segmentedaccording to specific criteria. The purpose of the study is to create a segmentation model thatis theoretically anchored and empirically verified, to increase the customer value and maptheir different needs. Through the purpose a research question was developed: How can asegmentation model for absentee proprietors within the forest industry be developed toincrease the customer value? A segmentation model provides comprehensive knowledge andinsights about forest owners’ different needs. The empirical data, collected through surveys,was presented individually and some connections could be found. Through these connectionsproperty area and distance were chosen as factors that are appropriate for segmentation. Basedon the segmentation factors a correlation analysis was made to create four demographicsegmentations. The visitors: small area, small distance. Conservationists: small area, largedistance. Investors: large area, small distance. Specifiers: large area, large distance. Theconclusion shows that a segmentation model over absentee proprietors is necessary for thestrategic management in forest companies, when it comes to decisions regarding sales criteria,communication and recommended approaches.

Over the last century, there has been growing interest in changing the approach to maintenance management. The current practice for selecting critical equipment and making a decision on the most appropriate maintenance strategy is perceived to have serious limitations, principally because it lacks decision analysis. Due to the complex nature of decision-making in maintenance management, different models have been developed for selecting critical equipment. However, many of these models considered maintenance management as operational concern and ignored the strategic concerns of maintenance management. This thesis builds upon earlier works on decision-making for selecting critical equipment and maintenance strategy. It sets out to construct three hypotheses by introducing evidence from a comprehensive literature review, case study analysis and in-depth interviews. The thesis focuses on artificial intelligence and multi-criteria decision-making techniques (i.e. Fuzzy Logic and Analytical Hierarchy Process) to bridge this gap. It proposes a strategic decision-making model in maintenance and asset management for selecting critical equipment and deciding on a maintenance strategy. The novelty of model is to propose an approach in which maintenance strategy can be applied based on the equipment criticality while not making a trade-off between safety and cost but rather to combine the concern of safety with financial, operational and technical perspectives. The model provides an opportunity to consider safety as the first priority. The research output suggests that existing criticality assessment methods for optimising maintenance delivery have limited value and are suffering from a lack of strategic decision analysis. Multi-criteria decision-making tools could be used to improve decision-making of criticality assessment methods and hence maintenance strategy implementation. The validity of the proposed strategic decision-making model was tested through case study analysis and in-depth interviews. The results suggest that a strategic decision-making model could have a significant impact on improving safety, reliability and operational availability. The strategic decision-making model would enable asset managers to track the consequences of their decisions whilst dealing with maintenance. It is also an effective tool in the hands of a maintenance department to convince their asset managers to make a maintenance investment.

A decisão estratégica é tipicamente não estruturada, no sentido de que não existe processo semelhante na memória da organização. Essa estruturação corresponde ao cenário exposto de forma clara, com suas questões, hipóteses e objetivos. A qualidade da decisão estratégica depende principalmente do processo e da competência daqueles que participam dela. Gerar alternativas criativas e viáveis é uma etapa fundamental do processo de tomada de decisão, responsável em grande parte pela qualidade almejada. Entretanto, as pesquisas sobre geração de alternativas têm indicado consistentemente que as pessoas não são eficientes nessa atividade. Buscando-se as explicações para esse fato surgiram lacunas na literatura que serviram de inspiração para o presente estudo. Qual a influência das heurísticas e da isolação entre as etapas convergente e divergente na geração de alternativas? Para explorar essas lacunas e conhecer o desempenho do administrador brasileiro ao gerar alternativas foi realizado um experimento com 174 alunos de cursos MBA, de 4 escolas da Grande São Paulo. O resultado desse experimento propiciou algumas conclusões interessantes como a confirmação do baixo desempenho em geração de alternativas. O desafio para preencher as lacunas observadas permanece e as hipóteses da pesquisa, relacionando as heurísticas e a isolação como fatores que influenciam o desempenho, não foram aceitas. O estudo é uma confluência da pesquisa experimental, oriunda da psicologia cognitiva da decisão, com a visão da ciência da decisão organizacional. Essa linha de pesquisa se mostrou praticamente inexplorada nos estudos em administração desenvolvidos no Brasil. / The strategic decision-making is typically non-structured because there is no similarity process in the memory of the organizations. This structural model would involve a context of elements such as questions, hypotheses and objectives exposed in a quite clear way. The quality of the strategic decision-making depends mainly on its own process and on the competence of the individuals involved. An essential part of the making decision process is to generate creative and viable options that are also responsible for the quality of the process. However, researches on option-generating procedures have consistently suggested that people are not efficient in this kind of task. The present study was inspired by the fact that the current literature lacks studies explaining the reasons why this happen. What is the influence of the heuristics and isolation strategies on the convergent and divergent phases for generating options? In order to investigate this issue and understand the performance of the Brazilian managers for generating options, an experiment was conduct in 174 individuals studying in MBA courses at 4 educational institutions in the urban city area of São Paulo. The results led to some interesting conclusions such as the confirmation of the poor performance for generating options. The challenge and the lack remain mainly because the hypotheses tested, i.e., the heuristic and isolation strategies for generating options, were not effective. The present study is a confluence of two different decision approaches: the experimental research (based on cognitive psychology) and the management science. This line of research hasn’t been explored in the management field in Brazil.

<p>Many business schools teach the importance of using strategy tools when engaging in strategizing activities. Despite this fact there is an ongoing debate concerning what is taught in business schools and what is actually used in practice. In spite of this debate there has been little research done regarding how these strategy tools are used in practice. This study seeks to address this through the adoption of a strategy as practice perspective which helped to identify what is actually practiced by managers while engaging in strategizing activities. Managers use strategy to respond to complex forces (social, political, economic) in their business environments. However to develop and implement strategy encompasses a full range of strategizing activities such as strategic thinking, strategic analysis, strategic decision making and implementation. Many business schools teach strategy tools are techniques which managers use to structure and influence strategizing activities. Previous research on strategy tools played emphasis on the benefits that can be derived if tools are used in different context. Others have highlighted the frequency of tool usage. Nevertheless, there is a need to make a review what is taught and how strategy tools are used in practice.</p><p>A qualitative study was conducted in two universities through the use of semi structured interviews to gather data. The use of an inductive and interpretivism perspective through a case study helped the researcher identify the context in which events were taking place. The choice of a small yet deliberate sample size was done to focus in on the various levels of management within these universities and to review how strategy tools were used at these levels. After each interview the interviewees were given a list of 15 strategy tools (all of which were taught in the researcher’s masters programme) to identify whether they used any of the strategy tools on the list and if they did how did they use them. It was noted from the empirical data acquired that quite often strategy tools were not always being used for the purpose for which they were taught nevertheless managers were altering components of various tools to meet their individual business needs. Strategy tools were often used to assist in strategic thinking and strategic decision making. Managers’ perception of strategy tools affected the extent to which tools were used and the frequency of usage. While strategy tools were often used for growth and development, communication and persuasion and best practices it was its use in sense-making and evaluation which indicated that there is a need for a greater understanding into how managers make sense of strategy tools. The study answers how strategy tools are used in practice in a university context by giving illustrations and quotations from the various interviewees regarding strategy tools.</p>

The starting point for this thesis project is the increasing intense demands of using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to improve the environmental performance of projects, i.e. theFive-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope project(FAST project) inChina. As a prevailing systematic and strategic assessment tool, LCA is used to evaluate and assess all environmental impacts of products, services and industrial processes from cradle to grave. It is also well recognized and practiced to achieve the goal of sustainability.   Following the increasing trend of sustainable development, the idea of conducting LCA technique is gaining more support from the governments, local authorities and institutes inChina. Still, recent researches have only focused on the technical issues of this tool as such, rather than the context it is involved in. To give a broader perspective instead, this thesis focuses on how to make the rankings and quantitative eco-files generated from LCAs be understood more effectively and easily by the decision makers. An effective and comprehensive map of life cycle assessment building on the results of life cycle assessment is presented.This map in this thesis is named as CLCA. Through ranking and mapping the complicated and recondite environmental performance information from the LCAs, a holistic and systematic view can be provided to the decision makers. Thus, to some extent, this CLCA approach can lend support to strategic decisions making and sustainable development.   For this purpose, literature on LCA and literature from relevant disciplines are reviewed. The empirical analysis of FAST project sheds light on that it is necessary to develop a new method that can contribute to convertingcomplicated and reconditedata into a comprehensive and visualized one. Therefore, a survey paper based on the literature review and empirical analysis is designed, distributed and collected. Some influential and necessary essentials of the LCA reports for the decision makers are picked out and summarized in accordance with the results of survey papers. This thesis concludes by presenting a new map of LCA reports and suggestions for further research.

BACKGROUND: When it comes to corporate decision making, the traditional rational model suggests that deliberative analysis yields good results. Thus, when contemplating strategic moves, executives are “required” to conduct deliberative analyses. As today’s business environment is becoming increasingly complex and fast-paced, however, executives often face the dilemma of having to make carefully considered strategic decisions on the one hand and not having enough time on the other hand. Intuition offers an efficient solution in this situation. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to investigate how corporate executives employ both rationality and intuition in making strategic decisions under uncertain, complex and time-pressured circumstances. RESEARCH METHOD: We conducted three face-to-face interviews with executives from three companies in Sweden. Each interview lasted around one hour.    RESULTS: Drawing on previous psychological and managerial research, we argue that rationality and intuition are better viewed as being complementary rather than separate. Findings from the study suggest that intuition could serve as an effective and efficient means for managers to make strategic decisions; and that intuition indeed plays a role in strategic decision making under complex, uncertain and time limited contexts.

Many business schools teach the importance of using strategy tools when engaging in strategizing activities. Despite this fact there is an ongoing debate concerning what is taught in business schools and what is actually used in practice. In spite of this debate there has been little research done regarding how these strategy tools are used in practice. This study seeks to address this through the adoption of a strategy as practice perspective which helped to identify what is actually practiced by managers while engaging in strategizing activities. Managers use strategy to respond to complex forces (social, political, economic) in their business environments. However to develop and implement strategy encompasses a full range of strategizing activities such as strategic thinking, strategic analysis, strategic decision making and implementation. Many business schools teach strategy tools are techniques which managers use to structure and influence strategizing activities. Previous research on strategy tools played emphasis on the benefits that can be derived if tools are used in different context. Others have highlighted the frequency of tool usage. Nevertheless, there is a need to make a review what is taught and how strategy tools are used in practice. A qualitative study was conducted in two universities through the use of semi structured interviews to gather data. The use of an inductive and interpretivism perspective through a case study helped the researcher identify the context in which events were taking place. The choice of a small yet deliberate sample size was done to focus in on the various levels of management within these universities and to review how strategy tools were used at these levels. After each interview the interviewees were given a list of 15 strategy tools (all of which were taught in the researcher’s masters programme) to identify whether they used any of the strategy tools on the list and if they did how did they use them. It was noted from the empirical data acquired that quite often strategy tools were not always being used for the purpose for which they were taught nevertheless managers were altering components of various tools to meet their individual business needs. Strategy tools were often used to assist in strategic thinking and strategic decision making. Managers’ perception of strategy tools affected the extent to which tools were used and the frequency of usage. While strategy tools were often used for growth and development, communication and persuasion and best practices it was its use in sense-making and evaluation which indicated that there is a need for a greater understanding into how managers make sense of strategy tools. The study answers how strategy tools are used in practice in a university context by giving illustrations and quotations from the various interviewees regarding strategy tools.

This thesis focuses on exploring the problems and difficulties that Taiwanese-owned enterprises confront when they enter China market. Past studies on Taiwan companies entering China market lays great emphasis on the discussion of successful experiences and models. However, many actual illustrations of Taiwanese-owned enterprises suffering a setback have cautioned the follow-up Taiwan companies that the potential uncertainty and risk of China market are major factors of many strategic failing. Moreover, many individual relative factors affect the strategic responses of decision maker that can accommodate the inside and outside organizational environment well or not. Accordingly, through the gathering of a large number of secondary information and personal interviews, this study expects to provide a clearer macro-framework of how previous Taiwan companies¡¦ make incorrect and failing decisions with a practical method and help clarify the relationship among the errors. Additionally, this study tends to draw a valuable and meaningful conclusion from the process of data collecting and analysis. In accordance with the first research objective ¡V attributing and categorizing the factors that caused many complicated illustrations of Taiwan companies¡¦ failing, this study uses the decision-making framework to clarify the context. The decision-making framework can be divided into three parts, including decision makers, decision-making context, and decision-making process. The major influential factors of error derive from the decision maker and decision-making context. The third part, the errors of the decision-making process, are engendered and influenced by the former two parts, and thus will not be discussed much here. After classifying and grouping the factors of decision-making errors, this study further combines two parts, the error classification and the different types of enterprises, illustrate with a two-axes frame to clearly explain how a Taiwan enterprise with different conditions can relative seriously to the possibility of making mistakes and obstacle in China market. Major types of Taiwan enterprises include four parts: the entry timing¡Bthe investment orientation t¡Bthe composition of ownership and the business scale. The research findings are summarized as following, 1. The entry timing: As the time changes, government¡¦s attitude, investment environment and tendency, all are the very important thing affect to the bargaining power of any enterprises. What Taiwan enterprises that entry China market in different timing have concerned are quite different, even the possibility of making serious errors. 2. Investment orientation¡GThe enterprises are classified into two types ¡V orientation of China market selling and orientation of manufacture for export. Apparently, the two types of decision makers are quite different in risk-taking and risk- evaluating. As to the whole, the enterprises that focus on China market selling are more likely to engender several problems, such as consuming culture accommodation, distribution, and employee management problems. Compared with the other type, problem in capital uncertainty are apt to occur. 3. Composition of ownership: Compared with decision makers in joint venture, decision makers in ventures exclusively with his own investment have more right to act on their own. Because many difficulties are such serious that enterprises should not make, most Taiwanese-owned enterprises are more likely to enter China market in 100% ownership. 4. Business scale¡GCompared with the large scale of Taiwanese enterprises¡¦ decision makers, the medium and small companies¡¦ decision makers are more likely to make decisions quickly, adapt themselves to the changes, and prefer risks. Relatively, with the support of more resources, the large Taiwanese enterprises¡¦ decision makers could draw up their strategic planning of China step by step with rational ways. Compared with the medium and small enterprises, large enterprises have more bargaining power, and are likely to establish long-term relationship with the government. However, the medium and small enterprises still have their advantage in local government relationship and much closer to local consumer preference. All enterprises with different scale may have their own advantages and disadvantages. Despite that they both are confronted with the problem of joint venture and competition, the actual problems occurred are not the same. In the issue of the capital uncertainty, most large enterprises face more serious problems because many strategic blueprint of large enterprises need the support of a large amount of capital. If the enterprise has inappropriate arrangement or incorrect estimation, some capital issue may emerge.