Strategic Problem Solving in Turbulent Environments: a Description and Evaluation.

Abstract

This study addresses the growing need for techniques and approaches which aid in formulating and shaping complex, strategic problems emerging from increasingly turbulent environments. The research has three objectives: (1) to frame the overall strategic problem; (2) to describe an emerging "eight-step approach" (ESA) to such problems; and (3) to evaluate the ESA by retrospectively evaluating six past applications. The ESA is collaborative in orientation; its initial steps are oriented toward exp and ing the information available to clients (through literature review, networking and surveys). Emphasis in later steps is on integration through interactive workshops involving diverse perspectives on an issue. The evaluation entailed three forms of data collection: mail questionnaires to all workshop participants; a group interview with the project staff; and telephone interviews with key individuals in client organizations. Analysis of these data proceeded in two stages: first, sets of survey items were processed through dimensional analysis and scales were constructed. Second, relationships were explored using Analysis of Variance and Student t-tests. Open-ended material was content analyzed. The results indicate that the ESA has generally been successful in generating integrative outcomes. However, "informational" projects (exploratory efforts) were evaluated more positively than "implementational" projects (change efforts). The workshop phase was considered to be particularly important, especially the use of structured small group tasks in combination with informal interaction; these activities were highly correlated with information exchange and consensus building. Further, personal use (eg. contacts) proved to be an important factor in perceived project effectiveness. Also important were project-specific factors such as the client-staff relationship. The results also indicate that socially powerful people and experts tend to feel greater self-efficacy in problem solving than do those of lower social status. However, given the lack of a comparison method in this study, it was not possible to know how large the gap was relative to other, more adversarial approaches. Overall, this study suggests that third-party techniques such as the ESA (which are outside the formal decision system of client organizations) require time and the participation of key upper-level client actors in order to have real impact on decision making.