thesis strategic decision making

Strategic decision-making processes: the role of information

• Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences

Research output : Thesis › PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT

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• 10.3990/1.9789036528214
• PhD thesis C.L. Citroen Final published version, 4.65 MB

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• Decision-Making Computer Science 100%
• Roles Computer Science 100%
• Rational Decision Computer Science 33%
• Information Resource Computer Science 16%
• Cognitive Capability Computer Science 16%
• Value of Information Computer Science 16%

T1 - Strategic decision-making processes

T2 - the role of information

AU - Citroen, Charles Louis

PY - 2009/5/14

Y1 - 2009/5/14

N2 - The focus of this dissertation is on the use of information in the strategic decision-making process by executives in industrial organisations and how these processes have changed in recent years e.g. under the influence of increased availability of information resources. The emphasis thereby was on the process, not on the resulting decision itself. The executive that follows a rational approach collects and uses ample information in a structured decision-making process passing through a number of distinct phases in time. For our fieldwork, we interviewed 14 executives, Board members of large (> 300M€ turnover) chemical and food processing industries in The Netherlands and Germany discussing by which process they have reached some recent decisions. The value of information for strategic decision-making is supported by the results of our research. We observed that in rational decision-making, information relevant to the issues that have to be decided plays a crucial role in each phase of this process; executives have to acknowledge the facts in order to be able to consider an issue. The main reason for the use of information is a reduction of uncertainty needed to obtain the answer to an issue at hand. We tested the rationality of the actual processes followed by observing whether there were arguments that pointed to other than the rational approach to strategic decision-making. We did not observe during our interviews any indication of these arguments, such as unduly great time pressure, ‘satisficing’ solutions or ‘bounded rational’ decisions due to limited cognitive capabilities of executives or of lack of information that might have resulted in intuitive approaches.

AB - The focus of this dissertation is on the use of information in the strategic decision-making process by executives in industrial organisations and how these processes have changed in recent years e.g. under the influence of increased availability of information resources. The emphasis thereby was on the process, not on the resulting decision itself. The executive that follows a rational approach collects and uses ample information in a structured decision-making process passing through a number of distinct phases in time. For our fieldwork, we interviewed 14 executives, Board members of large (> 300M€ turnover) chemical and food processing industries in The Netherlands and Germany discussing by which process they have reached some recent decisions. The value of information for strategic decision-making is supported by the results of our research. We observed that in rational decision-making, information relevant to the issues that have to be decided plays a crucial role in each phase of this process; executives have to acknowledge the facts in order to be able to consider an issue. The main reason for the use of information is a reduction of uncertainty needed to obtain the answer to an issue at hand. We tested the rationality of the actual processes followed by observing whether there were arguments that pointed to other than the rational approach to strategic decision-making. We did not observe during our interviews any indication of these arguments, such as unduly great time pressure, ‘satisficing’ solutions or ‘bounded rational’ decisions due to limited cognitive capabilities of executives or of lack of information that might have resulted in intuitive approaches.

U2 - 10.3990/1.9789036528214

DO - 10.3990/1.9789036528214

M3 - PhD Thesis - Research UT, graduation UT

SN - 978-90-365-2821-4

PB - University of Twente

CY - Enschede

A strategic management process: the role of decision-making style and organisational performance

Journal of Work-Applied Management

ISSN : 2205-2062

Article publication date: 16 February 2023

Issue publication date: 24 April 2023

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual framework for integrating strategic thinking factors, organisational performance and the decision-making process.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology involves a synthesis of literature and proposes a framework that explores the relationship between strategic thinking enabling factors, organisational performance and the moderating effect of decision-making styles.

The framework includes strategic thinking enabling factors (systems perspective, focused intent, intelligent opportunism, thinking in time and hypothesis-driven analysis), organisational performance and the moderating effect of decision-making styles (intuitive and rational).

Research limitations/implications

This research results in a conceptual model only; it remains to be tested in actual practice. The expanded conceptual framework can serve as a basis for future empirical research and provide insights to practitioners into how to strengthen policy development in a strategic planning process.

Originality/value

A paradigm shift in the literature proves that strategic management and decision-making styles are vital in determining organisational performance. This paper highlights the importance of decision-making styles and develops a framework for strategic management by analysing the existing strategic management literature.

• Strategic management
• Intuitive decision-making
• Rational decision-making
• Strategic thinking process
• Organisational performance

Sinnaiah, T. , Adam, S. and Mahadi, B. (2023), "A strategic management process: the role of decision-making style and organisational performance", Journal of Work-Applied Management , Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 37-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/JWAM-10-2022-0074

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2023, Tamilarasu Sinnaiah, Sabrinah Adam and Batiah Mahadi

Published in Journal of Work-Applied Management . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

Managers are appointed to achieve the organisation's objectives and goals. As these objectives gradually increase with competition, managers must become strategic thinkers with excellent decision-making skills. The strategy towards the organisational outcome highlighted in this section has been widely debated among academic scholars and practitioners. Organisational strategies are essential in sustaining an organisation's competitive advantage to face a complex and uncertain future.

Effective strategic management frameworks enable managers to focus on the complex issues that must be prioritised to hasten decision-making processes ( Dlamini et al. , 2020 ). Whilst enabling managers important to make the decisions needed to direct the organisational effort towards overcoming specific issues ( Wang et al. , 2021 ). The organisation's effectiveness in addressing critical issues with solutions that best fit the current environmental factors will ensure the vitality and image of the organisation. Strategic management is pertinent to manage the organisation in a continuous, systematic manner.

The first segment of strategic management is the effective action programs chosen to reach these goals and objectives.

The second segment is the resource allocation pattern that relates the organisation to its environment.

Moreover, strategic management is defined as translating the thinking process into an action plan that benefits the organisation to sustain its competitive advantages. Strategy also can be categorised as strategic thinking and strategic planning. Strategy is also the commitment of the top-level management to attaining outcomes aligned with the organisation's strategic objectives. Strategy can be realised when there is consistent outcomes or patterns over the years. Therefore, strategy is planning for the future or determining patterns based on consistent outcomes. Organisations must develop plans and also evolve patterns derived from previous organisational outcomes. These phases can be explained as intended strategy and realised strategy.

The effectiveness of the strategies employed can indicate the organisation's performance in achieving its objectives and goals. Organisations need to measure the outcome of the strategies employed by having measurable objectives that will enhance the employees' commitment towards achieving the goals. Conversely, organisational learning and financial measures such as organisational profitability can also benchmark organisational performance. The responsiveness of organisational performance has a direct relationship and is influenced by management efforts to emphasise leadership within the organisational structure. This is done by observing the support and strategies utilised by managers to achieve the objectives and goals. This paper aims to enhance an understanding of strategic management processes involving decision-making styles towards organisational performance. First, this paper highlights strategic management's operational and theoretical approach towards organisational performance. Moreover, this study enhances the result of previous literature on strategic enablers by explaining the effort involving decision-making to strengthen the organisational structure, particularly the decision-making styles (intuitive and rational), that moderates the relationship between the strategic thinking process and organisational performances ( Ritter, 2014 ).

Academic scholars and practitioners have highlighted the importance of strategic management in measuring organisational performance in terms of innovation, entrepreneurship, technology, knowledge, economics, healthcare and organisational performance ( Adam et al ., 2018 , 2020 ; Alosani et al. , 2020 ). Conversely, there is a knowledge gap on the effective judgement practices of strategic management enablers and organisational performance during decision-making ( Abuhjeeleh et al ., 2018 ; Acciarini et al. , 2021 ; Elrehail et al ., 2020 ; Nguyen, 2020 ). This paper analyses the relationship between strategic management and organisational performance and suggests a framework to elucidate the relationship variables such as moderators, rational and intuitive decision-making styles.

2. Literature review

Strategic management is applying strategic decisions towards the organisational vision to achieve strategic competitiveness and sustain competitive advantages ( Alosani et al. , 2020 ; Rodrigues and Franco, 2019 ). Strategic management is a cognitive impairment of structuring the internal capabilities to fulfil external demands and involves plans, patterns, positions, perspectives and plots ( Mintzberg et al ., 2020 ). Strategic management is the managerial discourse involving a framework of the decision-making process, which highlights how the strategy process is formulated in organisations, acknowledging the cognitive management structure of the organisations. Additionally, the organisation's members need to respond effectually to the decisions made by the management and cooperate to ensure that the organisational vision is reached, given that this will affect the organisational adaptability, legitimacy and performance ( Johnsen, 2015 ). Organisations must be aware of the uncertain environments that can influence their welfare.

Consequently, the strategic management process can be reflected in two directions: strategic planning and strategic thinking. Strategic planning emphasises formulating strategies or disciplined efforts to produce strategic decisions to achieve the organisation's objectives ( Bryson, 2018 ). Strategic planning also can be reflected as a system that enhances the decision-making process among the members of an organisation. The strategic management process needs to be fulfilling for the organisation to sustain its competitive advantages. Moreover, strategic thinking is creative, disruptive, future-focused and experimental and often contradicts traditional notions of strategic planning ( Liedtka, 2000 ). Strategic planning is the principal element of the strategic management process involving resource management, implementation, control and evaluation of strategies ( Poister et al ., 2010 ). Strategic planning focuses on formalising existing strategies and employing creativity to enhance perspectives ( Mintzberg et al ., 2020 ). The uncertainties of environments and conflicting perspectives can be evaluated and addressed using strategic thinking as a part of the organisational decision-making process ( Chin et al ., 2018 ). Studies by Goldman et al . (2015) indicated that organisational members are not actively involved during the strategic decision-making process, leading to the decline in the organisation's performance.

The importance of the strategic decision-making process towards organisational performance was emphasised by Steptoe‐Warren et al. (2011) . The research suggested that evaluating, identifying and validating the process will enhance the strategic thinking process to positively impact performance ( Norzailan et al ., 2016 ). Moreover, strategic thinking plays a vital role in analysing the external factors influencing the process. If the organisational members take it lightly, it will lead to perception deficiencies ( Kızıloglu and Serinkan, 2015 ). Additionally, the study highlighted that strategic planning occurs after strategic thinking ( Alatailat et al ., 2019 ; Bonn, 2001 ; Mintzberg, 1994 ). Consequently, this study will focus on strategic thinking as the fundamental phase in the strategic management process.

A conceptual framework that highlights the management principles among the business process in delivering effective solutions for problems is shown in Figure 1 .

3. Strategic management

Strategic management is defined as a framework for achieving success, and it is pivotal for organisations to achieve their objectives and continuously perform better ( Elliott et al ., 2020 ). Additionally, strategic management is a continuous process of looking for a better action plan to ensure the organisation's competitiveness.

3.1 Strategic thinking

The most challenging issue an organisation faces is awareness of the strategic vision and missions, available resources and identifying opportunities for growth within the organisation ( Bryson, 2018 ). Therefore, strategic thinking is a vital element in the chain of processes, which must be carried out effectively and systematically ( Sahay, 2019 ). Nevertheless, organisations need to be aware that strategic thinking can fail miserly if the decision-makers do not realise the strategic enablers or the factors responsible for the effective strategic thinking process. Strategic enablers influence the thoughts and decision process of the organisational members ( Goldman et al ., 2015 ). Therefore, strategic enablers will lead the organisation's members towards idea growth and personal development, while strategic thinkers expedite the organisational performances ( Alatailat et al ., 2019 ).

Individuals involved in the organisational structure utilise their experiences and thought processes in managing conflicts to enhance strategic thinking ( Alaarj et al ., 2016 ). Strategy managers or thinkers recognise the relationship between business responsibilities and departments and organisations and their business stakeholders ( Cabral et al. , 2019 ). This relationship is known as “system thinking”, where an organisation explores the structure reflected in the action and environment that causes the incident. Additionally, the direction or the organisational destiny is a type of strategic intent utilised to help achieve the business objectives. This occurs when all the employees can concentrate on their purpose until it is achievable.

Strategic intent is pertinent in increasing competitive advantages and improving organisational performance ( Chen et al ., 2015 ). Intelligent firms must be considered before becoming competitive to ensure the organisation can create intelligent opportunities to lead the business emerging strategies towards their vision ( Alaarj et al ., 2016 ). Conversely, the organisation should integrate previous events with the current situation to achieve and align with the organisation's objectives. This is vital for organisations to connect to the past and present environment to envision the firms and prepare for any internal or external challenges in their business ( Abubakar et al ., 2019 ). A hypothesis-driven analysis is the core element in the strategic thinking process to gather relevant information regarding the business. Therefore, the challenges faced must be transformed into a hypothesis-driven analysis to understand better the measures needed to be taken by the stakeholders to improve the organisational performances.

3.2 Decision-making style

The role of managers within an organisation must be elucidated to help enhance the decision-making process to create competitive advantages for the organisation ( Dionisio, 2017 ). Moreover, Porter (1990) emphasised the differences between competitive strategy and competitors. Decision-making styles also play a vital role in formalising the strategic decision procedure and can be defined as a habitual or formal response pattern taken by managers when there is an incident ( Kulcsár et al ., 2020 ). According to Acciarini et al. (2021) , decision-making styles are directly related to cognitive styles involved in the strategic thinking process. Decision-making style, which can be both at individual and team levels, can be classified into intuition and rationality ( Dayan and Di Benedetto, 2011 ; Dayan and Elbanna, 2011 ; Giermindl et al ., 2022 ; Luan et al ., 2019 ; Sukhov et al ., 2021 ). Therefore, the author highlighted that cognitive styles could be divided into two different categories: “feeling as information evaluators”, where managers actively gather information intuitively, and “thinking as information evaluators”, where managers systematically collect information ( Behling et al ., 1980 ). Alternatively, decision-making styles can be considered intuitive and rational information gathering and evaluating styles ( Calabretta et al ., 2017 ).

The intuitive decision-making style can be defined as the episodes of uncertainty patterns of action imposed by managers or the decision-makers based on the current situation. In addition, intuitive decision-makers must be aware of current issues and relate the relationship between cognitive schemes with holistic thinking to resolve problems ( Calabretta et al ., 2017 ). It is also believed that the intuitive decision-making process can be influenced by a sudden awareness of information ( Zhu et al ., 2017 ). Decision-makers can determine solutions without fully understanding or realising the extent of information available. Studies agree that the intuitive decision-making process can occur when unsorted information is restructured into an organised pattern of action that transforms into a conscious solution ( Zander et al ., 2016 ). Furthermore, the intuition organisations performance is enhanced when decision-makers utilise the intuition decision-making style when there is no access or relevant analytical data to support them in making strategic decisions that align with the organisation's objectives ( Temprano-García et al ., 2018 ). Conversely, intuition decision-making also contributes positively to the organisations performance when the issues are resolved quickly despite limited resources or knowledge on the current issues.

Studies by Sauter (1999) emphasised that intuition decision-making or illumination is a sudden awareness of information where the decision-makers are unaware of fundamental facts or information. The author also highlighted several ways to establish the intuitive decision-making process. First, detection is an intuition where decision-makers think of several different situations rather than focusing on the current issue ( Kolbe et al. , 2020 ). Working on current strategic issues will enable managers to comprehend related information to help solve the issue by connecting facts or elements that previously did not relate to each other ( Temprano-García et al ., 2018 ). Another form of intuition is evaluation, where the solution appears as an available option creating a sense of certainty or vague feelings towards the analytical data ( Hodgetts et al ., 2017 ).

Conversely, the intuition decision-making process can also be hypothesised as an explicit and implicit decision-making style ( Tabesh and Vera, 2020 ), where explicit decision utilises feelings or emotion and implicit decisions refer to the experience of the relevant situation ( Bhat  et al ., 2021 ; Remmers et al ., 2016 ). Moreover, intuitive decision-making styles also utilise the subconscious processing of verbalised and nonverbalised facts or information ( Tabesh and Vera, 2020 ). A recent study suggests that intuitive decision-making aided managers in enhancing the strategic decision towards the organisation's performance ( Francioni and Clark, 2020 ).

Rational decision-making involves several solutions that will be analysed based on the issues and the relevance of this information towards the current problem before implementing the final decision ( Temprano-García et al ., 2018 ). The structured information consisting of conscious thinking must be evaluated critically ( Acciarini et al. , 2021 ). In addition, the rational decision-making process will enhance the effectiveness of the decision by structuring the decision criteria by highlighting and evaluating the alternatives individually ( Fitzgerald et al ., 2017 ). The decision-makers or the managers who utilise rational decision-making styles are more likely to be vigilant and organised about available information during decision-making ( Zhu et al ., 2021 ).

3.3 Organisational performance

For five decades, organisational performance has been widely researched by academic scholars and business practitioners ( Adam et al ., 2018 ). Organisational performance has been analysed in terms of normative and descriptive explanations in strategic planning research for continuous improvement in managing organisational performance ( Buddika et al ., 2016 ). Organisational performance can be explained by describing how things happen without judging good or bad. Alternatively, the organisational performance also can be elucidated by an evaluation in terms of performance against a benchmarked alternative or standard or by a descriptive statement explaining how the situation occurs without judgement ( Camilleri, 2021 ). Even though most research is done on the continuous improvements of organisational performance, practitioners still have many arguments and discussions on the terminology and conceptual bases to determine organisational performance ( Sarraf and Nejad, 2020 ).

Organisational performance can be reflected based on the results of the organisation's common objectives, given that the methods implemented are coherently used. Consequently, the performance processes' flow or the input resources can be critically analysed ( Tsai et al ., 2020 ). The effectiveness of organisational performance is influenced by the process implemented and can be measured by the achievements. Furthermore, organisational performance is defined as analysing the series of improvements to achieve organisational objectives. Generally, various factors can be associated with organisational performance, such as organisational structures, conflict, cross-cultural and social influences ( Sinnaiah et al. , 2023 ).

Performance measurement is a systematic series to identify the effectiveness and efficiency of people's behaviour to perform to their utmost abilities. Adam et al . (2018) described performance measurement as a unit, department or business process. Therefore, it is conceptualised that there is a structural relationship between organisational performance and performance measurement. Moreover, performance measurement requires substantive and relevant restructuring of input resources and processes to be aligned with the current system to increase productivity level or performance. Failure to analyse the performance measures will weaken the organisational strength and drain the organisation's efforts ( Alosani et al. , 2020 ). Thus, strategic thinking can be a highly effective performance measure for organisations.

4. Propositions

4.1 strategic thinking process and performance.

Strategic thinking is a structured assessment of analysing and synthesising information, intensively assessing the current situation and initiating new ideas or best available options to achieve strategic objectives ( Dhir and Dhir, 2020 ). An organisation's success depends on strategic thinking as it will enhance a decision-maker's skills, abilities and knowledge and help sustain competitiveness in uncertain environments ( Dhir et al ., 2021 ). Consequently, the process of strategic thinking is crucial for any organisation to successfully achieve and survive in the market for a more extended period. Decision-makers need to be effective and cognisant of the business opportunities that arise from innovating new ideas to enhance the strategic portfolio of organisations ( Bryson et al ., 2018 ).

Strategic thinking process will positively influence organisational performance.

4.2 Rational decision-making style, strategic thinking process and performance

In evaluating an organisation's performance and the uncertainties of the environment that influences the complexities in achieving positive growth for the organisation successfully, managers must have decision-making skills that utilise strategic thinking processes. Moreover, managers must be responsible for making fast and effective solutions by analysing, evaluating and prioritising available information to overcome strategic issues and obtain positive results ( Acciarini et al. , 2021 ). According to Calabretta et al . (2017) , there is a positive correlation between the strategic thinking process and decision-making style. Decision-making styles have the same structure as strategic thinking, which involves different levels, such as organisation or individuals.

Rational decision-making will moderate the relationship between the strategic thinking process and organisational performance.

4.3 Intuitive decision-making style, strategic thinking process and performance

Several studies highlight the roles of the strategic thinking process among managers within the boundaries of our cognitive capacities ( Kaufmann et al ., 2017 ) and postulate that mental flexibility can influence it ( Barlach and Plonski, 2021 ). Studies also emphasise that managers or decision-makers often utilise intuition during challenging situations, which is expected compared to the rational way of analysing the issues ( Kaufmann et al ., 2017 ). This intuition process can be a two-fold construct consisting of experience-based and emotionally affected situations. Additionally, this can involve a complex process of information affected by new cues towards previous experiences stored in their memory and transform it into subconscious action in the decision-making process ( Stanczyk et al ., 2015 ). Based on the study done by Simon (1976) , academic scholars and practitioners emphasised that managers are highly keen on inner feelings or gut feelings involving strategic decisions when faced with competitive issues ( Al-Jaifi and Al-Rassas, 2019 ; Bozhinov et al ., 2021 ; Palaniappan, 2017 ). The decision-making process utilising intuition uses available information, which might not have been available in the past, to quicken the process of decision-making. It is also important to realise that decision-making depends on the issues faced by the organisations, and not all issues require a rational decision-making style. For specific issues, managers might only need relevant information, deliberation and formal procedures to derive effective solutions for the organisation compared to instances where the managers are not bounded by any set of procedures or rules to solve the issue.

Therefore, strategic thinking is a process of synthesis, and based on intuitive decision-making style, where the outcome is an integrated perspective of the enterprise, managers can utilise intuition decision-making style to arrive at a solution with complete freedom and flexibility towards the organisational performance. The decision-makers attempt to be involved in the decision-making process while being aware of the current issues and having a sense of relationship among the cognitive schemas with the approach of holistic thinking to determine the solution to the problem ( Khemka and Hickson, 2021 ). It is clear that the intuitive decision-making process would include the issues faced by the organisation in analysing the issues and synthesis ( Zhu et al ., 2017 ) although all the processes occur under the sense of relationship or perception. It is also believed that the intuitive decision-making process could be influenced by the decision-makers upon the sudden awareness of information ( Peng et al ., 2020 ), whereby the decision-makers could propose a solution without the understanding or realisation of why the facts are present.

Intuitive decision-making will moderate the relationship between the strategic thinking process and organisational performance.

5. Discussion and conclusion

This paper reviews strategic management involving the strategic thinking process, organisational performance and decision-making styles with extant empirical work transforming into propositions, with the ultimate goal being to integrate the strategic management process into a systematised and approachable process that needs a fast response. Strategic management plays a vital role in aligning the standard repertoire of an organisation's strategic thinking. Moreover, managers must realise that strategic thinking has a unique process that depends on the situation. The thinking process should be aligned with the specific scenarios to ensure the best solution can be implemented. To sustain competitive advantage, managers should be effectively involved in the strategic thinking process to positively impact their organisations ( Bryson et al ., 2018 ).

The importance of strategic thinking enablers (systems perspective, focused intent, intelligent opportunism, thinking in time and hypothesis-driven analysis) was emphasised in the strategic thinking process and organisational performance. The systems perspective exposes the importance of organisations understanding the relationship between functions and departments internally and externally. Furthermore, organisations need to consider the functional, business and organisation strategies towards a highly competitive environment ( Buddika et al ., 2016 ). Consequently, these systems perspectives will help organisations manage interactions effectively across all departments to enhance productivity. Focus on intent will guide the organisations towards achieving strategic objectives and resisting eccentricity ( Bromiley and Rau, 2015 ). Focus intent will positively aid organisations to be more competitive in the long run as the managers realise the sense of discovery in managing strategic objectives. Therefore, it will improve the performance and consciously push the organisation towards innovation by eliminating limitations and becoming high achievers. Conversely, intelligent opportunism will enhance the strategic objectives by creating new opportunities to be more competitive although the strategies do not align with the current vision of the organisation. This is where intelligent opportunism will play an essential role at the managerial level of the organisation to effectively communicate and measure organisational performances ( Camilleri, 2021 ).

Emerging strategies will boost the organisation's motivation and productivity and should be carefully evaluated from time to time as the future of the organisations might be projected based on the past performance. Therefore, the importance of swift thinking permits the strategic managers to purposefully analyse the mission and vision of the organisation over time. The right action at the right time will help the organisations sustain competitively and save the organisations from self-destruction by limiting the positive changes made to help improve the organisation's performance ( Adam et al ., 2018 ).

Maintaining the balance between thinking creation and cognitive processing ( Calabretta et al ., 2017 ) and enhancing organisational performance (education, financial, creative, innovation, e-commerce and quality) is a challenge faced when creating effective management strategies ( Adam et al ., 2018 ; Al-Jaifi and Al-Rassas, 2019 ; Alharbi et al ., 2019 ; Arvis et al ., 2018 ). In addition, based on previous theoretical perspectives, most of the research scenarios will be based on the governance mechanisms of management and the policy development impacts on organisational performance ( Abubakar et al ., 2019 ). Therefore, based on extensive empirical and conceptual research, strategic thinking processes positively contribute to measuring organisational performance. Based on previous research, this study infers that cognitive development plays an effective role in the segregation of control between strategic thinking, which serves as a barrier to becoming more competitive and innovative in the long run ( Adam et al ., 2018 ). In addition, this happens among employees and directly impacts the quality of the organisational harmonies, such as mutual respect, trust and welfare of the employees. A cognitive processing environment is the use of intuition and rationality in decision-making with equal importance. The managers utilise intuition decision-making styles to resolve unrelated information received. During the strategic thinking process, the managers will receive unsorted information without processed knowledge which will be later organised into sorted knowledge using intuition styles ( Zander et al ., 2016 ). However, the rational decision-making style focuses more on the analytical procedure to conclude an issue the organisation faces. This helps the managers build confidence in the solution by eliminating uncertainty during decision-making ( Zhu et al ., 2021 ). Moreover, managers will only accept solutions with clear and less ambiguous information (rational) compared to managers utilising a more subconscious style (intuition) when formulating solutions. Consequently, there will be conflict in the decision-making process within the organisations.

According to Boamah et al. (2022) , the effectiveness of decision-making styles can differ according to the situation and the dependents. Alternatively, both decision-making styles were highlighted as an alternative way of generating a problem–solution approach within organisations ( Kolbe et al. , 2020 ; Stanczyk et al ., 2015 ). This study argues that both decision-making styles have equal importance in resolving problem–solution approaches and can be a harmonious process to achieve an effective performance measure. This argument is supported by Acciarini et al. (2021) , Tabesh and Vera (2020) . Therefore, this study concludes that both decision-making styles (rational and intuition) positively impact the strategic thinking process and organisational performance. Based on the framework in Figure 1 , the proposed framework highlights the missing sections of cognitive processing among businesses when delivering effective solutions for a complex problem. Organisations have only emphasised human capital and treated it as a scarce resource that will determine the organisation's performance. This study proposed that future strategic management researchers should explore the thinking process literature's core principles to investigate policy development further. Future research should transform these academic initiatives into empirical research by implementing this proposed model.

Conceptual framework

Competing interests: The authors reported no competing interests.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the administration of Azman Hashim International Business School, Block T08, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, for providing the facilities and the PhD Scholar room during this research.

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Strategic Decision-Making in Asset Management

An approach to study long-term strategic decisions in water cycle infrastructures.

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Climate change, population growth and increasing consumption patterns of water and increasing urbanisation are challenges and future uncertainties that place stress upon urban water infrastructures. These urban challenges, along with the complexities of asset-intensive systems and socio-economic structures, make the development of efficient long-term strategies for the asset management of urban water cycle systems (WCS) problematic. Vitens - the largest drinking water company in the Netherlands - has considered changing their risk based asset management approach from input oriented short term, to an outcome oriented long-term approach in line with the institutional environment, which could lead to the development of efficient long-term strategies that would help cope with the complex characteristics of drinking water systems and uncertainties of the future. However, there are related complexities to effectively study the strategic decision-making process for asset management. This thesis aimed to develop a methodological framework that links the complexities of studying long-term strategic decision-making processes for asset management at water companies. The case study research shows that the strategic decision-making process of asset management can be studied by applying an integrated and systematic methodological framework based using the systems diagram method with a different approach. The approach manages three articulated complexities to study the strategic decision-making process: 1) the contentious concept of the asset management process, as it varies within industries, strategic asset management maturity and institutional arrangements; 2) the complex functions of the assets in Water Cycle Systems, and the norms governing them, that are hard to define and quantify; and 3) the difficulties in characterising the interrelations between the internal and external context that constitute the decision-making process. As a result, knowledge relevant to Vitens’ needs was gained in terms of: 1) the decision-making process to develop long-term strategies and strategic objectives; 2) the alignment within in the levels of the asset management process; and, 3) the integration of society needs, institutional arrangements, the environment and the business functions in the decision-making process.

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Strategic Decision Making: Process, Models, and Theories

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Strengthening the availability of evidence and fostering dialogue to stimulate investment in Kenya's health workforce

Staff at Railways Health Centre have seen a great improvement in their health workforce. Over five years the facility has expanded from 10 to 30 staff members, reflecting the broader national initiative to enhance healthcare delivery through strategic workforce development. Health workers are fundamental to strong health systems, and to progress towards universal health coverage.

This was due to sustained interventions by government and its partners to improve the availability of health workers to deliver health services across the country.

According to the Kenya’s Health Labour Market Analysis 2023 , which was conducted with technical and financial support from WHO, Kenya has doubled its health workforce in the last 10 years. This includes nurses, midwives, doctors, clinical officers and other trained professionals.

Improved availability of health workers at healthcare facilities across Kenya has significantly enhanced patient care, leading to an increase in individuals seeking treatment and improved quality of care offered at the health facilities nationwide.

The Government of Kenya has been using data, evidence, and multi-stakeholder dialogues to identify and implement strategic interventions to address its health workforce challenges. This supported the strategic investment needed in implementing the Kenya Human Resources for Health (HRH) Strategy 2019-2023, which is the foundation on which WHO supports the Kenyan Ministry of Health.

“To effectively use the investments made in the health sector as part of the UHC journey, there is need for a fit-for-purpose health workforce with appropriate skills mix and adequate number,” said Dr Sultani Matendechero, Acting Deputy Director General, Ministry of Health, Kenya

Improving data availability and quality for decision-making

Since 2020, with support from the UHC Partnership , WHO has provided technical and financial support to strengthen the availability of and use of data for health workforce strategic planning and health workforce management at national and county levels.

“It is my sincere hope that the findings of the health labour market analysis will provide evidence-based recommendations that will inform the Human Resources for Health policy and further improve the health care services in the country. I encourage you all to utilize the findings for decision-making, planning and programming,” said Dr Patrick Amoth, Director General, Ministry of Health, Kenya.

Engagement through multi-stakeholder national dialogue

WHO, through the UHC Partnership and United Kingdom Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) – Global Health Workforce Programme, supported the Kenya Health Human Resources Advisory Council (KHHRAC) to hold a National Dialogue on Strengthening Health Workforce Development and Management. This dialogue convened stakeholders from national and county governments and public and private sectors that work directly with the health workforce or in related sectors such as education.

During the two days dialogue, over 100 participants including policymakers, health workers’ labour unions, professional associations, training institutions, and health workers themselves engaged in discussions to identify challenges and solutions including what has worked well in the past.

The dialogue culminated with the signing of the Kericho National Declaration on Health Workforce with resolutions and actions to be implemented by the Ministry of Health and stakeholders over two years. If translated effectively into investments and policies, the Kericho Declaration can significantly advance Kenya's efforts towards achieving Universal Health Coverage.

“Kenya is demonstrating its commitment to achieving health for all through decisive action, with health workers serving as the backbone of the health system. The points that emerged from the national dialogue provide significant milestones to ensure that UHC becomes a reality,” said Dr Diallo Abdourahmane, WHO Representative to Kenya.

The UHC Partnership operates in over 125 countries, representing over 3 billion people. It is supported and funded by Belgium, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Japan, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and WHO.

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Patient, carer, family and community

​​​​​​​​​​​At the patient, carer, family and community level of decision making and governance, clinical and operational decisions have a direct impact on patient care.

What does success look like at this level?

Aboriginal peop​le are embedded into decision-making processes and governance structures that impact aboriginal people in nsw health​​​.

• Aboriginal patients, carers and their families are listened to and included in decision making using the ‘Finding your way: a shared decision making model created by mob, for mob ’. This is a culturally adapted shared decision making model so that Aboriginal people can feel safe and trusted to make informed decisions based on their values and beliefs.
• Aboriginal patients and families connect with NSW Health staff in a holistic and meaningful way and feel safe, trusted and respected as equal participants, allowing them to make informed decisions. There are formal processes in place to listen, document and report on the experiences and feedback of Aboriginal patients, carers and families.
• Aboriginal patients and their families have access to culturally safe support and escalation processes in NSW Health hospitals and facilities. These processes are clearly communicated and accessible.

​​Aboriginal NSW Health staff are recognised in the NSW Health system and are supported and empowered to participate in shared decision making, governance and accountability structures

• Aboriginal NSW Health staff in identified patient-facing roles, for example AHWs, ALOs, and AHPs, are embedded into decision-making processes for Aboriginal patients. These staff members are empowered to participate in shared decision making about Aboriginal patients’ care throughout their patient journey in NSW Health services, including referral, triage and discharge processes.
• Aboriginal NSW Health staff in non-identified patient-facing roles are recognised for their cultural skills and lived experience and are empowered to participate in shared decision making for care of Aboriginal patients, if they chose to do so.

NSW Health and the Aboriginal Community Controlled Sector have strong partnership mechanisms to provide integrated and coordinated care and services to Aboriginal people in NSW​​​

• NSW Health systems and processes recognise and embed the role of ACCHOs in the patient journey and establish continuity of care for ACCHO Aboriginal patients between services. This includes formal referral, discharge and communication processes between ACCHOs and NSW Health services. For example, NSW Health and ACCHO clinical and operational staff have regular community of practice meetings.
• ACCOs have partnership mechanisms in place with NSW Health to ensure that their Aboriginal clients are able to access culturally safe and appropriate care. For example, NSW SGOs have partnership mechanisms in place to ensure Stolen Generations Survivors and their families can access timely, trauma informed and culturally safe healthcare. ​

The NSW Health system is held accountable for improving outcomes for Aboriginal people at each level of decision making and governance​​

• NSW Health has clear accountability mechanisms to ensure that all NSW Health patient services specifically meet the needs of Aboriginal people as outlined in the NSQHS User Guide for Aboriginal Health . For example, the NSW Health Clinical Governance in NSW Policy Directive includes governance and accountability mechanisms for clinical governance of Aboriginal health.
• All NSW Health staff are trained and held accountable to provide culturally safe and responsive care to Aboriginal patients. All NSW Health staff are able to ask patients if they identify as Aboriginal, and if yes, practise in a culturally safe and responsive way.
• NSW Health has a strong zero tolerance policy on racism within NSW Health services and organisations with clear accountability mechanisms. This is clearly defined in the NSW Health Code of Conduct and related policies. All NSW Health staff are held accountable to ensure that all patients and staff can work in a culturally safe and inclusive environment. ​

Examples of how the framework principles look in practice

• Wilcannia Care on Country Haemodialysis Project (Principle 1)
• ​ Aboriginal Transfer of Care model in SWSLHD (Principle 2)

View all case studies