Strategic Decisions: An Introduction

Strategic decision making (SDM) is of great and growing importance because of five characteristics of strategic decisions (SDs): (a) they are usually big, risky, and hard-to-reverse, with significant long-term effects, (b) they are the bridge between deliberate and emergent strategy, (c) they can be a major source of organizational learning, (d) they play an important role in the development of individual managers, and (e) they cut across functions and academic disciplines. Research on SDM processes started as long ago as the early 1960s but has grown especially fast over the last ten years. This book aims to pull this wide-ranging research together into a single volume which summarizes the current state of the art. It is in five parts. Part One is introductory. Parts Two to Four include the substantive chapters on the process, context, and outcomes of SDs and how these interact. The final part consists of commentaries and our view of the implications for managers and researchers.

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Authors and Affiliations

1. London Business School, UK Vassilis Papadakis & Patrick Barwise

1. Vassilis Papadakis