TY - CHAP

T1 - Organizational Planning

T2 - The Psychology of Performance Introduction

AU - Frese, Michael

AU - Mumford, Michael

AU - Gibson, Carter

PY - 2015/6/12

Y1 - 2015/6/12

N2 - Planning is often considered a critical infl uence on performance at work and the performance of organizations. Beginning in the 1970s, interest in planning diminished among psychologists and students of organizational behavior. Moreover, with the advent of interest in emotions and their survival value and an increasing focus on intuition, planning was often contrasted with these approaches and found to be slow, ineffi cient, constraining, and wanting. Also, descriptive studies showed that managers plan much less than originally thought (Mintzberg, 1975 ) and business plans were often a useless endeavor (Honig & Karlsson, 2004 ), partly because, in the chaotic development of a fi rm, entrepreneurs needed to engage in a lot of bricolage and improvisation (Baker, Miner, & Eesley, 2003 ). Moreover, with the advent of the understanding that rationality is limited (bounded rationality) (March & Simon, 1958 ) and that people are unable to predict future or complex events in technology and economics, it became highly plausible that people make planning errors, leading to the conclusion that planning leads to failures. Indeed, since Kahneman and Tversky introduced the term planning fallacy, planning has often been combined with biases – thus, planning was often conceptualized as useless and biased. Practice has similarly weighed in and suggested that it is often best to make decisions through intuition rather than careful planning, so as not to waste time and other resources, and that strategic planning departments in large companies often just lead to an increase in bureaucracy (compare comments by prominent managers like Jack Welch). All of this has led to a certain degree of skepticism towards planning and less willingness to do research in this area.

AB - Planning is often considered a critical infl uence on performance at work and the performance of organizations. Beginning in the 1970s, interest in planning diminished among psychologists and students of organizational behavior. Moreover, with the advent of interest in emotions and their survival value and an increasing focus on intuition, planning was often contrasted with these approaches and found to be slow, ineffi cient, constraining, and wanting. Also, descriptive studies showed that managers plan much less than originally thought (Mintzberg, 1975 ) and business plans were often a useless endeavor (Honig & Karlsson, 2004 ), partly because, in the chaotic development of a fi rm, entrepreneurs needed to engage in a lot of bricolage and improvisation (Baker, Miner, & Eesley, 2003 ). Moreover, with the advent of the understanding that rationality is limited (bounded rationality) (March & Simon, 1958 ) and that people are unable to predict future or complex events in technology and economics, it became highly plausible that people make planning errors, leading to the conclusion that planning leads to failures. Indeed, since Kahneman and Tversky introduced the term planning fallacy, planning has often been combined with biases – thus, planning was often conceptualized as useless and biased. Practice has similarly weighed in and suggested that it is often best to make decisions through intuition rather than careful planning, so as not to waste time and other resources, and that strategic planning departments in large companies often just lead to an increase in bureaucracy (compare comments by prominent managers like Jack Welch). All of this has led to a certain degree of skepticism towards planning and less willingness to do research in this area.

KW - Management studies

KW - Entrepreneurship

KW - Business psychology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84942609136&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.4324/9780203105894

DO - 10.4324/9780203105894

M3 - Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

SN - 978-1-84872-604-8

SN - 978-1-138-80047-2

T3 - Organization and Management Series

SP - 1

EP - 8

BT - The Psychology of Planning in Organizations

A2 - Mumford, Michael D.

A2 - Frese, Michael

PB - Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

CY - New York

ER -