MARKETING IN TURBULENT ENVIRONMENTS - DECISION-PROCESSES AND THE TIME-SENSITIVITY OF INFORMATION

The authors study the relationship among information processing, marke ting decisions, and performance in turbulent markets-i.e., markets in which the time-sensitivity of information is a major factor in decisio n making. Drawing on both organizational contingency theory and indivi dual behavioral decision research, the authors suggest that successful performance depends on the congruence between the level of marketplac e turbulence and the information-processing style and associated decis ions adopted. They focus by way of example on the decision processes e mbodied in formal planning procedures. Using the results from an exper iment conducted with a strategic marketing simulation game, they show that ''planning'' leads both to an underweighting of the time-sensitiv ity of marketplace information and toward a bias in favor of certain m arketing decisions over others-decisions that, in this case, result in inferior performance in turbulent markets when compared with that of decision makers not engaged in formal planning. They discuss the impli cations of the findings for managerial behavior in turbulent markets.