How Executives’ Mental Scenarios of Future Influence Strategic Choices: A New Publication by Dr. Phadnis

27 Mar 18

Dr. Phadnis published an article in Supply Chain Frontiers describing the managerial implications of a research study he lead-authored about the role of “strategic cognition” of supply chain and operations executives involved in making decisions about the company’s supply chain strategy. The study asks: how do operations executives, typically dealing with short-term issues, think about the long-term for making strategic decisions.

The study identifies four generic types of strategic cognition, based on two dimensions of an executive’s vision of the future business environment. These dimensions are the executive’s regulatory focus, which describes the balance between threats and opportunities in the vision, and the level of optimism about the company. The four types of executives have preference for different types of strategic choices. For example, executives of “pushing” cognition (those who see future primarily in terms of threats but remain optimistic about the company’s ability to overcome them) prefer strategic choices that involve influencing the company’s external stakeholders (customers, suppliers, etc.) to generate more revenue through the company’s existing portfolio of products and services. The full article can be read on at this link.