267 17 WHAT CAN WE TELL MANAGERS ABOUT MAKING STRATEGIC DECISIONS? Vassilis Papadakis London Business School Patrick Barwise London Business School ABSTRACT After 35 years of research on strategic decision making (SDM), what can we tell managers about SDM processes which is both valid and useful? After briefly reviewing the relevant literature we discuss the prescriptive results of such research under six headings (rationality, politics, conflict, techniques to improve strategic debate, participation, and overall SDM tactics). We also review some other insights from SDM research, such as the impact of context and content, for which we are not (yet) able to make clear normative statements. We then discuss how future research can develop more results which are both rigorous and managerially relevant. The final section lists some brief guidelines for managers and discusses how they seem to fit together into a consistent picture of effective SDM. THE AIM AND SCOPE OF THIS CHAPTER After 35 years of research on strategic decision-making (SDM), what can we tell managers about SDM processes that is both valid (ie based on credible empirical research) and useful (especially in the strong sense of offering specific guidelines, not just insight or understanding)? A substantial proportion of business school teaching and research provides frameworks and techniques to improve decision- making, including SDM, but little of it passes the three tests implied by this question. Nevertheless, as some of the earlier chapters have shown, we do have valid and useful things to tell managers about SDM. This chapter aims to summarize them. Strategic Decisions Edited by Vassilis Papadakis and Patrick Barwise. Published 1998 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.