Managing Strategic Surprise by Response to Weak Signals

Bryant W. W. (Manage, TEO Central, Phillips, Eindhoven, Holland), personal; communication.

Smith Leslie (Chairman of the BOC Limited, London), personal communication.

For each of the six response strategies, a series of alternative types of counteractions can be enumerated. See Ansoff H. Igor , “Managing Surprise and Discontinuity: Strategic Response to Weak Signals,” Working Paper 75–21 (April 1975), European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management.

A detailed listing of possible measures for external and internal awareness, as for external and internal flexibility, can be found in Ansoff , op. cit.

One of the potential byproducts of such combination is an acceleration of strategic planning processes; see Ansoff , op. cit.

Ansoff H. Igor Eppink J. Gomer H. , “Management of Surprise and Discontinuity: Problems of Management Decisiveness,” Working Paper 75–29 (July 1975), European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management.

Ansoff H. Igor , “Enhancing Managerial Decisiveness in the Face of Strategic Turbulence,” forthcoming.

Ansoff H. Igor Hayes R. Declerck R. , “From Strategic Planning to Strategic Management,” in From Strategic Planning to Strategic Management (London: John Wiley & Sons, 1976).

Davous Pierre Deas James , “Design of a Consulting Intervention for Strategic Management,” in From Strategic Planning to Strategic Management, op. cit.