Organizational persistence in the use of war gaming and scenario planning
Author
Augier, Mie
Dew, Nicholas
Knudsen, Thorbjørn
Stieglitz, Nils
Date
2018Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Even though war gaming and scenario planning are widely used in business contexts, there is little evidence that either practice is
associated with superior performance. Why, then, spend the costs? In this paper we address this puzzle and suggest why the extant
empirical findings have so far proven limited. We consider the development of these practices and find that they have a substantially
entangled and overlapping history, particularly at the RAND Corporation in the 1950s. Despite shared historical roots, the treatment of
war gaming and scenario planning in the scholarly literature branched out into different streams. This separation is unfortunate because it
obscures a better understanding of the premises under which these practices are effective. We propose an analysis of the overlaps and
contrasts of war gaming and scenario planning that sets out clear boundary conditions for their use and efficacy. We find that each
practice is tailored to provide strategic guidance in a context where the organization is facing different forms of uncertainty. This suggests
they may be effective, and thus improve organizational performance, where the relevant uncertainties are operative. Such benefits would
be apparent over longer time scales, and only if the relevant boundary conditions are met. However, to the best of our knowledge, no
longitudinal empirical test of either war gaming or scenario planning is available. We therefore conclude that more research is needed to
ascertain the true relationship between these popular practices and their performance outcomes.
Description
The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2017.12.005
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
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