This special issue explores the impacts of behavioral strategy on management practice. Behavioral strategy can best contribute to management practice by shifting its focus from individual decision biases to the design of behaviorally informed decision processes at the level of the firm. This introduction identifies three types of organizational decision processes, shows how they interact with individual and group biases, and proposes a model showing how managers can design and deploy these processes to shape the strategy of the firm. It then introduces the articles in this special issue and discusses their contributions to the future of behavioral strategy.
Using a behavioral strategy lens, we introduce a framework to categorize and improve strategic decisions. The typology uses two dimensions, salience and framing, while considering whether decisions truly produce strategic consequences. This yields six relevant types of decisions. “Archetypal” decisions are single strategic decisions that are labeled as strategic. “Programmatic” decisions are series of multiple decisions that are accurately labeled as strategic. “Hyped” and “habitual” decisions are single and multiple decisions, respectively, that are labeled as strategic but do not produce strategic consequences. Finally, “hidden” decisions are single decisions that are not labeled as strategic but do have strategic consequences; and “process driven” decisions are sets of multiple decisions that are not labeled as strategic but do, in aggregate, produce strategic outcomes. For each type of decision, we discuss pitfalls and suggest potential remedies.
Résumé Les arbitrages stratégiques ne sont jamais faciles à faire. Les mauvais choix résultent parfois d’erreurs de jugement et de tromperies plus ou moins intentionnelles.
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