International Behavioural Perspectives on How Boards of Directors and Top Management Teams Interact and Plan Strategically for Uncertain Futures

该项目将涉及对董事会和高级管理团队在战略决策过程中的作用进行国际比较研究。这项研究将借鉴行为理论的观点，审查正式和非正式的战略制定和决策程序和程序是如何运作和发展的。它将特别注意公司领导人如何看待和分析战略规划中的风险和不确定性。这项研究将采取以人种志为基础的方法。它将利用一系列定性工具。这将包括与一些组织进行深入的实地考察。这将涉及观察非执行和执行董事与高级管理人员之间的会议和其他非正式互动，并跟踪其中一些会议和互动。这些技术将与大量组织的半结构化和结构化访谈相结合，以促进比较视角。采用这种方法的目的是深入了解组织的“内部”工作，特别是执行董事和非执行董事与高层管理团队之间的关系动态，以及这些关系如何影响伴随战略规划的政治谈判和知识创造过程。这项研究将在许多领域做出独特的贡献。它的目的是加强对公司决策者在制定战略时如何考虑未来的理解。特别是，它将旨在分析他们如何科普可量化风险和不确定性之间往往微妙的差异，以及这对他们思考期货的方式意味着什么。这样做的目的是扩大对使用情景分析的理解，以便深入了解使用情景规划方法来预测和规划不确定的未来，以及这种方法的潜在局限性。该项目的比较性和国际性也将增强对更广泛的文化和制度因素在企业领导人如何思考和管理风险和不确定性方面的作用的理解。此外，该研究将试图挑战主流理论观点，即董事会是对执行“代理人"行使控制的”委托人“。它将借鉴基于资源的观点，认为董事会的作用是帮助公司获得和维持资源。它还将严格审查将执行和非执行董事以及高级管理人员视为具有共同目标的管理概念是否有用。这样做的目的是促进发展一种行为理论范式，这种范式将借鉴若干理论线索。这可能有助于解释董事会和高层管理团队之间的合作和共同目标如何提高战略规划过程的有效性。

This project would involve an international comparative study of the role of boards of directors and top management teams in strategic decision making processes. The research would draw on behavioural theoretical perspectives to examine how formal and informal strategy formulation and decision-making routines and processes function and have been developed. It would pay particular attention to how corporate leaders view and analyse risk and uncertainty in strategic planning. The study would take a methodological approach grounded in ethnography. It would draw on a range of qualitative tools. These would include in-depth fieldwork with a number of organisations. This would involve observing meetings and other informal interactions between non-executive and executive directors and senior managers, as well as shadowing a number of them. These techniques would be combined with semi-structured and structured interviews across a larger number of organisations to facilitate comparative perspectives. The aim of employing such an approach would be to gain insight into the 'inner' working of organisations, particularly the dynamics of relationships between executive and non-executive directors and top management teams, and how these affect the political bargaining and knowledge creation processes that accompany strategic planning.The research would make a distinctive contribution in a number of areas. It would aim to enhance understanding of how corporate decision makers think about the future in formulating strategy. In particular, it would aim to analyse how they cope with often subtle differences between quantifiable risk and uncertainty, and what this means for their ways of thinking about futures. In so doing, it would aim to extend understanding of the use of scenario analysis to generate insights into the use of scenario planning methods to anticipate and plan for uncertain futures, as well as potential limitations of this approach. The comparative and international nature of the project would also enhance understandings of the role of wider cultural and institutional factors in how corporate leaders think about and manage risk and uncertainty.In addition, the study would seek to challenge the dominant theoretical view, which sees boards of directors as 'principals' exercising control over executive 'agents'. It would draw on the resource-based view, which sees a role of the board as helping firms secure and maintain access to resources. It would also critically examine the usefulness of the concept of stewardship, which sees executive and non-executive directors and top managers as having shared aims. In so doing, it would aim to contribute to the development of a behavioural theoretical paradigm, which would draw on a number of theoretical strands. This could help explain ways in which collaboration and shared aims between boards of directors and top management teams could improve the effectiveness of strategic planning processes.