Analysis and Intuition in Strategic Decision Making: The Case of California

This paper reports the results of a study that attempts to assess the effects of decision making circumstances focusing mainly on the approaches applied and the managerial skills and capabilities the decision makers built on during concrete strategic decision making procedures. The study was conducted in California between September 2005 and June 2006 and it was sponsored by a Fulbright Research Scholarship Grant. Twenty top level managers were targeted: twelve were CEOs, Presidents, Vice Presidents or Chief Financial Officers (will be called Executives), while eight were founders and majority owners of their own enterprises (will be called Entrepreneurs). The lack of field studies in strategic decision making processes called for a research study to examine concrete real life cases and to analyse how top level managers really make strategic decisions.