CEOs, Information, and Decision Making: Scanning the Environment for Strategic Advantage

CEOs SCAN THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT for information about events and trends in order to plan their organizations’ future courses of action. This study investigates how CEOs in the Canadian publishing and telecommunications industries acquire and use information about the business environment. The uncertainty of the environment was found to be related to the amount of scanning done. The perceived quality of information sources and the environmental uncertainty accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in source use. Information about the environment was often used in making decisions concerning organizational improvements and business strategies.

[1]  T. Allen,et al.  Criteria used by research and development engineers in the selection of an information source. , 1968, The Journal of applied psychology.

[2]  K. Nishi,et al.  Scanning the organizational environment: Some empirical results , 1982 .

[3]  S. Jain,et al.  Environmental scanning in U.S. corporations. , 1984, Long range planning.

[4]  S. Ghoshal,et al.  Building effective intelligence systems for competitive advantage: Sloan Management Review, 1, 49–58 (Fall 1986) , 1987 .

[5]  Victor Rosenberg.  Factors affecting the preferences of industrial personnel for information gathering methods , 1967, Inf. Storage Retr..

[6]  K. Weick,et al.  The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2d ed. , 1980 .

[7]  Chun Wei Choo,et al.  Environmental Scanning by CEOs in Two Canadian Industries , 1993 .

[8]  K. Weick.  The social psychology of organizing , 1969 .

[9]  John W. Zimmerman,et al.  Scanning the International Environment , 1979 .

[10]  Chun Wei Choo,et al.  Environmental scanning: preliminary findings of a survey of CEO information seeking behaviour in two Canadian industries , 1992 .

[11]  Stephen Blank,et al.  The Assessment and Evaluation of Noneconomic Environments by American Firms: A Preliminary Report , 1980 .

[12]  Robert S. Taylor,et al.  Value-Added Processes in Information Systems , 1987 .

[13]  F. Aguilar.  Scanning the business environment , 1967 .

[14]  Harold E. Klein,et al.  ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT: AN INTERNATIONAL STUDY OF CORPORATE PRACTICE , 1984 .

[15]  R. Duncan.  Characteristics of Organizational Environments and Perceived Environmental Uncertainty. , 1972 .

[16]  R. Daft,et al.  Chief executive scanning, environmental characteristics, and company performance: An empirical study , 1988 .

[17]  W. Keegan.  Multinational Scanning: A Study of the Information Sources Utilized by Headquarters Executives in Multinational Companies. , 1974 .

[18]  W. Glueck,et al.  Business Policy and Strategic Management , 1980 .

[19]  Charles A. O'Reilly,et al.  Variations in Decision Makers' Use of Information Sources: The Impact of Quality and Accessibility of Information , 1982 .

[20]  Chun Wei Choo,et al.  How Senior Managers Acquire and Use Information in Environmental Scanning , 1994, Inf. Process. Manag..

[21]  J. C. Flanagan.  Psychological Bulletin THE CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE , 2022 .

[22]  Jacob Cohen,et al.  Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences , 1979 .

[23]  Organizations , 1992, Restoration & Management Notes.

[24]  Mary J. Culnan,et al.  ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING: THE EFFECTS OF TASK COMPLEXITY AND SOURCE ACCESSIBILITY ON INFORMATION GATHERING BEHAVIOR* , 1983 .

[25]  N. Roberts,et al.  Value-added processes in information systems , 1986 .

[26]  Ray Lester,et al.  Environmental scanning and business strategy , 1989 .

[27]  Henry Mintzberg.  The Nature of Managerial Work , 1974, Operational Research Quarterly (1970-1977).

[28]  Jiing-Lih Farh,et al.  ASSESSING ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING AT THE SUBUNIT LEVEL: A MULTITRAIT‐MULTIMETHOD ANALYSIS* , 1984 .

[29]  Tefko Saracevic,et al.  RELEVANCE: A review of and a framework for the thinking on the notion in information science , 1997, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[30]  P. Thomas,et al.  Environmental scanning— the state of the art , 1980 .

[31]  B. E. Partridge,et al.  The Nature of Managerial Work , 1974 .

[32]  Thomas J. Allen,et al.  Managing the flow of technology: technology transfer and the dissemination of technological informat , 1977 .

[33]  D. Hambrick,et al.  Environmental scanning, organizational strategy, and executive roles : A study in three industries , 1979 .

[34]  Howard Rosenbaum,et al.  Information Use Environments and Structuration: Towards an Integration of Taylor and Giddens. , 1993 .

[35]  Robert W. Zmud,et al.  AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE DIMENSIONALITY OF THE CONCEPT OF INFORMATION , 1978 .