The composite form of presentation was chosen in order to describe in detail more aspects of the process than appear in any one case and to help maintain anonymity. Similar efforts at the U.S. Bureau of Census are reported in MitroffIan I.BarabbaVincent P.KilmannRalph, “The Application of Behavioral and Philosophical Technologies to Strategic Planning: A Case Study of a Large Federal Agency,”Management Science, Vol. 24, No. 1 (September 1977), pp. 44–58. Additional details on the process used at the drug company are published in MitroffIan I.EmshoffJames R., “On Strategic Assumption-Making: A Dialectical Approach to Policy and Planning,”Academy of Management Review (in press). We are indebted to Kilmann and to Emshoff for some of the data reported in this article.
2.
See SteinerGeorgeMinerJohn B., Management Policy and Strategy (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1977), and KoontzHaroldO'DonnellCyril, Essentials of Management (New York: McGraw-Hill Books Co., 1974).
3.
These group formation principles derive in part from research conducted by MitroffKilmann. See MitroffIan I.KilmannRalph H., “On Integrating Behavioral and Philosophical Systems: Towards a Unified Theory of Problem Solving,”Annual Series in Sociology, Vol. 1 (1978, in press); KilmannRalph H.LylesM.MitroffIan I., “Designing an Effective Problem-Solving Organization with the MAPS Design Technology,”Journal of Management, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1976), pp. 1–10; and KilmannRalph H.SetlzerJoseph, “An Experimental Test of Organization Design Theory and the MAPS Design Technology: Homogeneous versus Heterogeneous Composition of Organizational Subsystems,”Proceedings of the Eastern Academy of Management (1976).
4.
MAPS stands for Multivariate Analysis, Participation and Structure. It is a method for designing social systems developed by KilmannRalph. See KilmannRalph H.Social Systems Design (New York: North-Holland, 1977).
5.
Details are reported in MitroffBarabbaKilmann, op. cit. A similar framework for separating managers according to their problem-solving style is found in McKenneyJames L.KeenPeter G.W., “How Managers' Minds Work,”Harvard Business Review (May-June 1974).
6.
The “stakeholder” concept seems to have emerged initially in the systems analysis work on organizations conducted by researchers at the Tavistock Institute in London. See RhemanEric, Industrial Democracy and Industrial Man (London: Tavistock Institute, 1968); and FoxAlan, A Sociology of Work in Industry (London: Coller-Macmillan Limited, 1971), pp. 57–68. AckoffRussell has linked the concept to planning in Redesigning the Future (New York: Wiley, 1974). The notion has much in common with the role of the “client” in systems analysis; see ChurchmanC. West in The Systems Approach (New York: Dell Publishing, 1968).
7.
Purposeful or teleological systems are discussed in ChurchmanC. West, The Design of Inquiring Systems (New York: Basic Books, 1971); and AckoffRussellEmeryFred E., On Purposeful Systems (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton, 1972).
8.
The “inverse optimal question” is the first stage in creating a dialectic as described by MasonRichard O., “A Dialectical Approach to Strategic Planning,”Management Science, Vol. 15, No. 8 (April 1968), pp. B403–B414. The article is reprinted in EwingDavid (ed.) Long-Range Planning for Management, Third Revision (New York: Harper & Row, 1971).
9.
The nominal group process is reported in DelbecqAndre L.Van De VenAndrew H., “A Group Process Model for Problem Identification and Program Planning,”Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 7, No. 4 (September 1971), and also in Van De VenAndrew H.DelbecqAndre L.“Nominal versus Interacting Group Process for Committee Decision-Making Effectiveness,”Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 14, No. 3 (1971), pp. 203–211.
10.
The method employed was one developed by SaatyTom. Technically, the procedure was as follows: Each member makes pairwise comparisons of the importance and certainty of each assumption using a scale from 1 to 0. The results are recorded in an n × n matrix A. The eigenvalue and eigenvector (characteristic root) problem Aw = λmax w (where λ is the dominant root) is solved yielding a vector of weights, w, which in turn are divided by the sum of the weights to produce a ratio scale of relative weights for each of the assumptions. We have implemented an algorithm for solving this on a Radio Shack TRS-80 home computer. In Table 3, these weights were mapped onto a [1, 0] scale for purposes of graphic display. See SaatyThomas L. nd RogersPaul C.“Higher Education in the United States (1985–2000),”Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Vol. 10 (1976), pp. 251–263.
11.
Mason, op. cit.
12.
The theory of argument we employ at this stage is that found in ToulminStephen E., The Uses of Argument (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958). Toulmin's theory requires that a claim (assumption) be analyzed as to its underlying data, warrants, backing (support for warrant), rebuttle (limitations on the warrant) and qualifiers.
