Personal and Structural Determinants of the Pace of Strategic Decision Making

A model of the determinants of strategic decision-making pace that incorporates the role of individual differences among executive decision makers, organizational structural characteristics, and industry effects is developed. Drawing on data from 151 firms, we found that chief executive officers' cognitive ability, use of intuition, tolerance for risk, and propensity to act associated positively with speedy decisions. Decision pace appeared to be faster in centralized organizations and slower in formalized organizations. Our results also suggest that the construct of comprehensiveness has both cognitive and organizational structural aspects, with cognitive comprehensiveness relating positively and organizational comprehensiveness, negatively, to strategic decision-making pace.