Elemzés vagy megérzés: a stratégiai döntéshozatal gyakorlata Californiában és Magyarországon = Analysis or Intuition: Strategic decision making in California and Hungary

Stratégiai döntéseket jellemzően a vállalatok felsővezetői, vezérigazgatók és elnökök hoznak. Ennek szellemében 40 felsővezetőt kérdeztünk két nagyon különböző régióban (Kaliforniában és Magyarországon) egy összehasonlító kutatás keretében. A két országban tizenkét válaszadó vezérigazgató, elnök, alelnök, vagy felelős vezető volt (rájuk, mint Vezetőkre hivatkoztunk), miközben nyolcan alapítói és többségi tulajdonosai voltak saját vállalkozásuknak (őket nevezzük Vállalkozóknak). A kutatás három területre irányult: 1) Hogyan hoznak döntéseket a felsővezetők a valóságban a világ e két különböző táján; 2) Mennyiben különböznek - ha egyáltalán különböznek - a Vállalkozók és a Vezetők az alkalmazott döntéshozatali közelítésmódot tekintve, amikor az analitikus gondolkodást az intuícióikkal kombinálják; 3) Mik a hasonlóságok és a különbségek a menedzsment képességekben és a döntéshozatali rutinokban a Vállalkozók és a Vezetők között a vizsgált menedzsment kultúrákban. = Strategic decision making is usually conducted by a firm’s top management, led by the CEO or the President of the company. In keeping with this, 40 top level managers in two very different regions (California, USA and Hungary) were targeted in a comparative research study. In the two countries, twelve of the managers were CEOs, Presidents, Vice Presidents or Chief Officers (hereafter referred to as Executives) while eight were founders and majority owners of their own enterprises (hereafter referred to as Entrepreneurs). The research focused on the following 3 areas: 1) How top level managers really make strategic decisions in these two different parts of the world; 2) How Entrepreneurs and Executives differ, if at all, in their approach to strategic decision making when they combine analytical thinking with their intuition; 3) The similarities and differences in management skills and decision making routines between Entrepreneurs and Executives within the investigated management cultures.

Racionális és intuitív döntéshozók Kaliforniában és Magyarországon (Analysis or Intuition – Strategic decision making in California and Hungary)

Stratégiai döntéseket jellemzően a vállalatok felső vezetői, vezérigazgatók és elnökök hoznak. Ennek szellemében a szerző negyven felső vezetőt kérdezett meg két nagyon különböző régióban (Kaliforniában és Magyarországon) egy összehasonlító kutatás keretében. A két országban tizenkét válaszadó vezérigazgató, elnök, alelnök vagy felelős vezető volt (rájuk mint Vezetőkre hivatkoztunk), miközben nyolcan alapítói és többségi tulajdonosai voltak saját vállalkozásuknak (őket nevezzük Vállalkozóknak). A kutatás három területre irányult: 1) Hogyan hoznak döntéseket a felső vezetők a valóságban a világ e két különböző táján 2) Mennyiben különböznek – ha egyáltalán különböznek – a Vállalkozók és a Vezetők az alkalmazott döntéshozatali közelítésmódot tekintve, amikor az analitikus gondolkodást az intuícióikkal kombinálják 3) Mik a hasonlóságok és a különbségek a menedzsmentképességekben és a döntéshozatali rutinokban a Vállalkozók és a Vezetők között a vizsgált menedzsmentkultúrákban? ______ Strategic decision making is usually conducted by a firm’s top management, led by the CEO or the President of the company. In keeping with this, 40 top level managers in two very different regions (California, USA and Hungary) were targeted in a comparative research study. In the two countries, twelve of the managers were CEOs, Presidents, Vice Presidents or Chief Officers (hereafter referred to as Executives) while eight were founders and majority owners of their own enterprises (hereafter referred to as Entrepreneurs). The research focused on the following 3 areas: 1) How top level managers really make strategic decisions in these two different parts of the world; 2) How Entrepreneurs and Executives differ, if at all, in their approach to strategic decision making when they combine analytical thinking with their intuition; 3) The similarities and differences in management skills and decision making routines between Entrepreneurs and Executives within the investigated management cultures.

Analysis and intuition in strategic decision making. The case of California

Many management scholars believe that the process used to make strategic decisions affects the quality of those decisions. However several authors have observed a lack of research on the strategic decision making process. Empirical tests of factors that have been hypothesized to affect the way strategic decisions are made notably are absent. (Fredrickson, 1985) This paper reports the results of a study that attempts to assess the effects of decision making circumstances focusing mainly on the approaches applied and the managerial skills and capabilities the decision makers built on during concrete strategic decision making procedures. The study was conducted in California between September 2005 and June 2006 and it was sponsored by a Fulbright Research Scholarship Grant.

Price of unsustainability. Economic impacts of climate change

Global problems, rapid and massive regional changes in the 21st century call for genuine long-term, awareness, planning and well focused actions from both national governments and international organizations. This book wishes to contribute to building an innovative path of strategic views in handling the diverse challenges, and more emphatically, the economic impacts of climate change. Although the contributors of this volume represent several approaches, they all rely on some common grounds such as the costbenefit analysis of mitigation and adaptation, and on the need to present an in-depth theoretical and practical dimension. The research accounted for in this book tried to integrate and confront various types of economics approaches and methods, as well as knowledge from game theory to country surveys, from agricultural adaptation to weather bonds, from green tax to historical experience of human adaptation. The various themes and points of views do deserve the attention of the serious academic reader interested in the economics of climate change. We hope to enhance the spread of good solutions resulting from world wide disputes and tested strategic decisions. WAKE UP! It is not just the polar bears' habitat that is endangered, but the entire human form of life.

How market information is transformed into marketing knowledge?

In the future, competitors will have more and more opportunities to buy the same information; therefore the companies’ competitiveness will not primarily depend on how much information they possess, but rather on how they can “translate” it to their own language. This study aims to examine those factors that have the most significant impact on the degree to which market studies are utilised by companies. Most of the work in this area has studied the use of information in strategic decisions a priori. This paper — while reflecting on the findings of research on organisational theories of information processing — aims to bridge this gap. It proposes and tests a new conceptual framework that examines the use of managerial market research information in decision-making and knowledge creation within one single model. Collected survey data, including all the top-income business enterprises in Hungary indicate that market research findings are efficiently incorporated into the marketing information system only if the marketing manager has trust in the researcher, and believes that the market study is of high quality. Decision-makers are more likely to learn from market studies facilitating the resolution of some specific problem than descriptive studies of a more general nature.

Domináns vállalat versenyképességének hatása az ellátási láncban (Effects of competitiveness of the dominant company in the supply chain)

Beszállító, gyártó és vevő vállalatok alkotnak egy ellátási láncot. Optimális esetben a vállalatok integrált rendszerben működnek, az együttműködés bizal mi alapon nyugszik, így a közös stratégiai döntések révén versenyképes lesz a lánc. Az ellátási láncban lehet egy kulcsfontosságú vállalat, amelyik domináns hatalmi pozícióval rendelkezik. A kutatás célja, hogy feltárja a hatalommal rendelkező vállalat szerepét a partnercégek és az ellátási lánc versenyképességének alakulásában. A szakirodalom alapján a hipotézis feltételezi, hogy van kapcsolat a versenyképesség és a domináns vállalat szerepvállalása között. A szerzők elemzése primer kutatáson alapul, a kérdőív válaszait SPSS statisztikai kiértékeléssel végezték. Az eredmények azt mutatták, hogy a domináns vállalat versenyképességétől valóban függ a partnercégek versenyképessége. Szignifikáns kapcsolat megléte bizonyítja a hipotézist. A vizsgálatok kiemelik, hogy a verseny már egy szinttel feljebb, az ellátási lánc szintjén értelmezhető: globális ellátási láncok versenyeznek egymással. _____ Supplier, producer and buyer companies make up a supply chain. In an optimal case the companies are integrated, partnership rests on trust which results in common strategic decisions leading to competitiveness. Each supply chain has a key company with dominant power position. The objective of the research is to analyse how the company with power affects competitiveness of partner firms and the supply chain as a whole. Based on theories hypothesis assumes a link between competitiveness and power position and its influence. Methodology of the analysis is based on primary research; the authors used SPSS statistical analysis to evaluate the answers of questionnaire. Findings include that partner firms’ competitiveness rely on competitiveness of the company with dominant power position. Significant connections prove that the hypothesis is true. Results show that competitiveness is being moved up to supply chain level. Global supply chains compete with each other.

Patterns in the lottery game

The present study is based on the analysis and results of a close to 5 years’ study in the frame which we used a “Lottery Game” in the "Decision Making Skills" subject taught at Corvinus Business School, Corvinus University of Budapest. In the frame of the "game", the students (Hungarians (n=231) and foreigners (n=267) alike) have to mark 6 numbers on a 7x7 lottery ticket. The winner is the student whose numbers differ the most from those of all the other students’. Upon analyzing the results (irrespectively of nationality) the authors have noted something notable: the winning combinations - rather than being located randomly on the ticket, characteristically resemble a geometric form. In our study we wanted to detect the relevance of geometry in this kind of choices. It is hypothesized that in such games (lottery type, related to numeric combination choice), where the players decide upon their strategy (choice of numbers) by also taking into consideration others’ expected choices, the winning strategy is characteristically some consciously chosen scheme or pattern as opposed to a random one. The study presents the results of the available samples (Hungarian students: n=231, foreign students: n=267), the winning combinations, the most often designated numbers, as well as the least “popular” numbers and their presentation on a "heat map". In the case of the majority of the winning tickets we found the use of conscious strategic choice to be more useful. These conscious strategic decisions were reflected in identifiable geometric forms. Based on the results, we hypothesize that in the "hidden lottery" game – in contrast with random choice – the most effective strategy of choice is the conscious ordered one in which the player marks the numbers on the lottery ticket in some modified geometric pattern. The goal of the paper is to propose further research on the field.

Individual decision-making by top executives as a valuable resource for strategic management – A resource-based view and dynamic capability approach

Strategy is highly important for organisational success and the achievement of competitive advantage. Strategy is dynamic and it depends on accurate individual decision-making from medium and high-level managers and executives. Since managers always formulate strategy, its formulation depends mostly on their assertive decisions. Making good decisions is a complex task, even more in today’s business world where a large quantity of information and a dynamic environment forces people to decide without having complete information. As Shafir, Simonson, & Tversky (1993) point out, "the making of decisions, both big and small, is often difficult because of uncertainty and conflict". In this paper the author will explain a basic theoretical framework about top manager's individual decision-making, showing how complex the process of making high-impact decisions is; then, he will compare this theory with one of the most important streams in strategic management, the Resource-Based View (RBV) of the firm. Finally, within the context of individual decision-making and the RBV stream, the author will show how individual decision makers in top management positions constitute a valuable, rare, non-imitable and non-substitutable resource that provides sustained competitive advantage.