THE PROCESSING OF INFORMATION BY STUDENTS AND BUSINESS PLANNERS

Evidence that students and practitioners in business organizations app roach problems differently has raised questions concerning the validit y of using students as subjects in research. This issue was addressed by presenting both students and practitioners with planning problems d iffering in environmental volatility, system adaptation, and planning requirements. Different combinations of these factors produced 12 dist inct planning situations. Eight information-processing strategies were identified that have been described in the literature as planning too ls. Each aid has been prescribed as being more appropriate for use in some planning situations than in others. The present study tested hypo theses that planners would use the information-processing aids prescri bed for specific situations and that students and practitioners would approach the problems differently. Results indicated that the use of i nformation-processing aids did not correspond closely to the theoretic al prescriptions. Other implicit theories may have been operating, and the implicit theories used by students may have been different from t hose used by practitioners.