Decision Making

CEOs, Information, and Decision Making: Scanning the Environment for Strategic Advantage

ETHEL AUSTER CHUNWEICHOO AND ABSTRACT

CEOs SCAN THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT for information about events and trends in order to plan their organizations’ future courses of action. This study investigates how CEOs in the Canadian publishing and telecommunications industries acquire and use information about the business environment. The uncertainty of the environment was found to be related to the amount of scanning done. The perceived quality of information sources and the environmental uncertainty accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in source use. Information about the environment was often used in making decisions concerning organizational improvements and business strategies.

INTRODUCTION

The work of managers is information intensive. Managers are exposed to a huge amount of information from a wide range of sources and selectively use the information to make day-to-day decisions and to formulate longer term strategies. Yet much remains to be learned about the information behavior of managers as a distinct user group. Relative to the large number of studies on scientists and technologists, f there have been only a very few studies that look at managers o business organizations as information users. Should we expect managers to show the same preferences for information sources as scientists and engineers? Are there special features about managers

Ethel Auster, Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto, 140 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1Al Chun Wei Choo, Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto, 140 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1Al LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 43, No. 2, Fall 1994, pp. 206-25 @ 1994 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois

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scanning for information about an uncertain environment that would influence their use of...