ABSTRACT
It seems uncontroversial to suggest that the environment within which the contemporary business decision-maker must operate is characterised by unprecedented levels of complexity. In part this reflects the influence of factors such as the globalisation of markets and enterprises, the dismantling of traditional barriers between functional areas of operation, and the emergence of new institutional arrangements for managing productive and trading activities. In part, too, complexity is a function of the revolution in the capability of those industries and technologies associated with the assembly, computation and presentation of information. Ultimately, decisions made in such complex environments are invariably the responsibility of individuals or groups, who, whilst potentially benefiting from access to highly sophisticated decision-relevant information, remain vulnerable to human cognitive limitations in their ability to absorb and utilise complex sets of often diverse and turbulent data. Against this context, the principal aims of this chapter are twofold; first, to offer a synthesis of a body of recent naturalistic research into the impact of environmental complexity on various aspects of decision-making, such as participation in decisions, risk-taking behaviour and decision performance; second, and relatedly, to demonstrate the poverty of conclusions based solely on laboratorybased work and the consequent necessity for appropriately designed naturalistic inquiry in enhancing our understanding of the influence of phenomena such as complexity.
