ABSTRACT
The academic study of group decision-making focuses on how decisions are made and the power plays of participants. Management may define the problem in a way that the burden of solving it falls on someone else. Thus the problem of a loss of market share may be attributed to unfair competition from foreign imports with the government being asked to take action. In the 1970s, the sales of Swiss watches declined dramatically, but the Swiss interpreted the advent of quartz slivers and electronic digital movements as 'specialties' offering no long-term threat. How managers categorize a problem structures their perceptions of the problem and guides their thinking on what should be done about it. One interesting historical example is the American Motors Corporation (AMC). Only slowly and too late did AMC come to recognize that it could no longer compete 'head-on' with General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. Companies usually have regular scheduled meetings to discuss market performance.
