Better Roughly Right than Exactly Wrong

See, e.g. Ansoff, H. Igor , Corporate Strategy, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1965; Steiner, G. A. , Top Management Planning, MacMillan, New York, 1969; Uyterhoeven, H. E. R. , Ackerman, R. W. and Rosenblum, J. W. , Strategy and Organization, Irwin, Homewood, 1973.

Toffler Alvin , Future Shock, Bantam Books, New York, 1970.

Drucker, Peter F. , The Age of Discontinuity, Pan Books, London, 1971.

See for more theoretical treatment of this subject: Emery, F. E. and Trist, E. L. , “The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments”, Human Relations, February 1965; Metcalfe, J. L. , “Systems Models, Economic Models and the Causal Texture of Organizational Environments: An Approach to Macro Organization Theory”, Human Relations, September 1974; Broden, Peter , Turbulence and Organizational Change, dissertation Linkoping University, 1976.

“Corporate Planning: Piercing Future Fog in the Executive Suite”, Business Week, April 28, 1975.

Brokken J. , “Liefde voor planning is sterk verminderd”, Trouw, May 18, 1974.

Gotcher, J. W. , van Gent, A. P. and Derkinderen, F. G. J. , The Influence of the Changing Environment on International Business Planning, Nijenrode, The Netherlands School of Business, Breukelen, September 1975.

Keuning, D. , Eppink, D. J. and de Jong, K. , Practice of Corporate Planning in The Netherlands: an investigation in 20 companies, Research Memorandum 32, Free University, Amsterdam, September 1975. An article about this project is published in Long-Range Planning, October 1976.

Ansoff, H. I. , Eppink, D. J. and Gomer, H. , Management of Strategic Surprise and Discontinuity: Problem of Managerial Decisiveness, Working Paper 75–29, European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, Brussels, July 1975, p. 14.

Mintzberg H. , “Strategy Making in Three Modes”, California Management Review, 1973, No. 2.

Eppink D. J. , Flexibility: A Necessary Complement to Planning, Working Paper 75–24, European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, Brussels, June 1975. Also, “Flexibiliteit, sturen bij het onvoorziene”, Tijdschrift voor Efficient Directiebeleid (TED), January 1976.

See ref. 9, p. 18.

Also mentioned by Wrapp, H. E. , “Good managers don't make policy decisions”. Harvard Business Review, September-October 1976, pp. 91–99.

See ref. 11.

For instance, Lawrence, P. R. and Lorsch, J. W. , Organization and Environment, Div. of Research, Harvard Business School, Boston, 1967; and Galbraith, J. , Designing Complex Organizations, Addison-Wesley, Reading, 1973.

Nystrom H. , “Uncertainty, Information and Organizational Discontinuity”, Management under Discontinuity, Report 75–1, European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, Brussels, 1975.

See ref. 11.

Simon H. A. , The Sciences of the Artificial, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1969, pp. 23–24.

McWhinney W. H. , “Organizational Form, Decision Modalities and the Environment”, Human Relations, August 1968.

McCaskey M. B. , “A Contingency Approach to Planning: Planning with Goals and Planning without Goals”, Academy of Management Journal, June 1974.

Ansoff H. I. , “A Quasi-Analytic Method for Long-Range Planning”, in Alexis M. and Wilson C. Z. (eds.), Organizational Decision Making, Prentice Hall, Englewood Clifs, 1967.

As several other authors have observed, there is a limit to the degree to which such major decisions can be left to the discretion of lower managers of, e.g. Ansoff, H. I. , Corporate Structure: Present and Future, EIASM Working Paper, February 1974.

Hekimian, J. S. and Mintzberg, H. , “The Planning Dilemma”, The Management Review, May 1968.

Ansoff H. I. , “Managing Strategic Surprise by Response to Weak Signals”, California Management Review, Winter 1975.

Derkinderen, F. G. J. , Hoofdlijnen der Bedrijfsstrategie (Methods for Strategic Management), Kosmos, Amsterdam, 1965, pp. 58–62.

See also: Derkinderen, F. G. J. , Highlights of a Balancing Identification Method, Working Paper 76–15, The Netherlands School of Business, September 1976.

See ref. 25, pp. 58–59.

Derkinderen, F. G. J. , “Passende Planning” (Suitaole Planning), Tijdschrift voor Efficient Directiebeleid (TED), December 1971.

See ref. 28, p. 444.