The influence of direction setting tactics on success in organizational decision making

Cases describing organizational decisions were analyzed to determine how managers set directions that guide the decision making process. Four tactics were identified called problem, idea, target, and reframing. Decision adoption rates, decision merit, and time to carry out the decision making process were used to determine the success of each tactic, controlling for the effects of urgency, importance, and decision maker level. Tactics were found to have more influence on decision success than the contextural variables of urgency, importance, and level. Reframing was the most effective tactic under all conditions, but was the least frequently used ty decision makers. Problem and idea tactics were the least successful, but were used more often than the other tactics. Problem tactics were much less successful when applied to urgent and important decisions. Targets were surprisingly successful in a crisis and for the more important decision.