Building consensus in strategic decision making: System dynamics as a group support system |
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Authors: | Jac A M Vennix |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Policy Sciences, University of Nijmegen, P.O. Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands |
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Abstract: | System dynamics was originally founded as a method for modeling and simulating the behavior of industrial systems. In recent years it is increasingly employed as a Group Support System for strategic decision-making groups. The model is constructed in direct interaction with a management team, and the procedure is generally referred to as group model-building. The model can be conceptual (qualitative) or a full-blown (quantitative) computer simulation model. In this article, a case is described in which a qualitative system dynamics model was built to support strategic decision making in a Dutch government agency.Since people from different departments held strongly opposite viewpoints on the strategy, the agency had discussed its strategic problem for more than a year, but was obviously not able to reach consensus. The application of group model-building was successful in integrating opposite points of view, as well as in fostering consensus and creating commitment.The purpose of the article is twofold: first, to illustrate the process of group model-building with system dynamics; second, to evaluate why it was successful. Evaluation results reveal the importance of both systemic thinking through model-building and the role of the facilitator in catalyzing the strategic decision-making process. |
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Keywords: | group support systems group facilitation consensus commitment strategic decision making knowl-edge elicitation group model-building |
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