Stumbling Giants: The Emptiness, Fullness, and Recursiveness of Strategic Management

Abstract

A rational decision is inherently paradoxical because its necessity goes hand-in-hand with its impossibility. Not only is our rationality bounded, as Herbert Simon has so convincingly shown, but we also must make decisions under conditions in which there are no rules by which we can make a decision - even if it be just a satisficing decision. We have to decide when we don't really know and cannot know how to decide.

This essential fact of decision making is ever the more true for strategic decisions which are, at their very core, about action under uncertainty and contingency. This paper discusses the recursive process through which corporate strategy, decision making, and restructuring occur.

Keywords: Strategy, Decison, Corporate Restructuring

JEL Classification: L1, L2, A14