Strategic decision making in the quasi-governmental sector: the illinois soybean program operating board

This paper reports on an intervention for improving the strategic decision making and strategic planning in a specific quasi-public organization: the Illinois Soybean Program Operating Board and on how decision support systems can alter perceptions of the decision making environment, which in turn affect strategic planning. The study hypothesis is that if the use of a sophisticated 3-D modeling tool, the Protein Consumption Dynamics (PCD) model, broadens perspectives to include a more global and long-term outlook, then the quality of planning should be enhanced. Before and after questionnaires are used to capture the changes in 121 soy industry decision- makers' perceptions of the decision making environment. The perceptions of soybean industry decision makers change to reflect more long-term thinking about the industry, indicating that the PCD model's visualized presentation of complex information did influence strategic behavior.