Strategic Decision Making Practice in Croatia – Which Decision Making Style is More Effective?

Decision making is a vital part of the business world
and any other field of human endeavor. Which way a business
organization will take, and where that way will lead it, depends on
broad range of decisions made by managers in the managerial
structure. Strategic decisions are of the greatest importance for
organizational success. Although much empirical research has been
done trying to describe and explain its nature and effectiveness,
knowledge about strategic decision making is still incomplete. This
paper explores the nature of strategic decision making in particular
setting - in Croatian companies. The main focus of this research is on
the style that decision makers on strategic management level are
following when making decisions of life importance for their
companies. Two main decision making style that explain the way
decision maker collects and processes available information and
performs all the activities in strategic decision making process were
empirical tested: rational and intuitive one. Besides analyzing their
existence on strategic management level in Croatian companies, their
effectiveness is analyzed as well. Results showed that decision
makers at strategic management level are following both styles
somewhat equally in order to function effectively, and that intuitive
style is more effective when considering decisions outcomes.

• Ivana Bulog

• Decision making style
• decision making effectiveness
• strategic decisions.

[1] S. Elbanna and J. Child, "Influences on strategic decision effectiveness:
Development and test of an integrative model" Strategic Management
Journal, vol. 28, 2007, pp. 431-453.
[2] H. Mintzberg, D. Raisinghani and A. Theoret, "The Structure of
Unstructured Decision Processes”, Administrative Science Quarterly,
vol. 21, no. 2, 1976, pp. 246-75.
[3] C. R. Schwenk, The Essence of Strategic Decision Making, Lexington
Books, Lexington, 1998.
[4] M. V. Papadakis, S. Lioukas and D. Chambres, "Strategic decision –
making processes: the role of management and context”. Strategic
Management Journal, vol. 19, no. 2, 1998, pp. 115-147.
[5] M. Nooraie, "Factors Influencing Strategic Decision-making Processes”,
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social
Sciences, vol. 2, no. 7, 2012, pp. 405-429.
[6] C. G. Mueller, M. A. Mone and V. L. Barker, "Formal Strategic
Analyses and Organizational Performance: Decomposing the Rational
Model”, Organization Studies, vol. 28, no. 6, 2007, pp. 853-883.
[7] I. Goll and A. A. Rasheed, "The Relationships between Top
Management Demographic Characteristics, Rational Decision making,
Environmental Munificence, and Firm Performance”, Organization
Studies, vol. 26, no. 7, 2005, pp. 999-1023.
[8] J. G. March, „How decisions happen in organizations", Human-
Computer Interaction, vol. 6, no. 2, 1991, pp. 95-117.
[9] N. Khatri and A. Ng, "The Role of Intuition in Strategic Decisin
Making”, Human Relations, vol. 53, no. 1, 2000, pp. 57-86.
[10] H.A. Simon, "Making management decisions: The role of intuition and
emotion” Academy of Management Executive, vol. 1, no. 1, 1987, pp.
57-64.
[11] S. Michaud, The influence of information processing style on decision
effectiveness, Dissertation at Graduate Faculty of The University of
Akron, 2002.
[12] D. J. Hickson, R. J. Butler, D. Cray, G. R. Mallory and D. C. Wilson,
"Top decisions: Strategic Decision-making in Organizations”,
Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 4, 1987, pp. 627-629.