ABSTRACT
A systematic search of the literature confirms that academic research on the internal workings of the managerial mind has been sporadic and unsystematic. An ongoing series of empirical field investigations of the thinking processes of very senior executives, primarily general managers, has been conducted. Identifying thinking processes that the senior managers used to deal with their tasks was more elusive, partly because many real-life cognitive processes are either automatic, inaccessible to introspection, or both. The senior manager’s world is laden with action, yet very little is understood about how senior managers formulate specific action steps. The observation that senior managers vigorously work back and forth between general and specific information is quite consistent with strategic opportunism. It is also argued that discrete decision making by managers is somewhat of an inaccurate term that serves a function for the observer more than for the manager.
