The Moment of Decision From the Perspective of Deliberate and Emergent Strategies

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of moments of decision for strategies based on the concept of deliberate and emergent strategies and the cycle that exists between them. The use of a strategy workshop incorporating the “beer game”, is employed, which allows for the creation of a deliberate strategy, followed by an abrupt end to the game, causing disruption and subsequent failure of the plan. The moment of decision concept was determined from the perspective of deliberate and emergent strategies, where the moment of decision results from a disruption of the deliberate strategy. This leads to an agent to a decision space where an emergent strategy can be constructed that results in continued viability in a system and allows for decisions to be made. Looking towards the future, it is with applied research activities that are associated with specific situations within the organization that are highlighted. As the main contribution shows, a relationship was seen between the cycle of deliberate and emergent strategies and decision timing, broadening the understanding of the temporal aspect of decisions.


INTRODUCTION
Within decisions, two hypotheses can be clearly identified based on the neoclassical theory established by Garrouste (1997) and Morin (1990), as cited by Smida (2006) and Espinosa (2016), which speaks of the freedom of decision-making agents when answering the question, "how to decide" and the rationale used when answering, "why decide."Various authors, using different schools of thought, have discussed the problem of decisions when considering the questions of how and why, but there is a particularly marked absence of studies on when to decide.There is only an implicit discussion of moments of decision when discussing the opportunities seen with decisions, when there are urgent threats, when the availability of resources allows for decisions, or when the decision maker considers a decision to be satisfactory, among others (Smida, 2006).
The problem of moments of decision has been addressed incidentally, concluding in some theories, that it is determined by the environment or the availability of resources while in others it is based on the decision maker and their concept of the strategy result in the timing (Smida, 2006).The decision-making process should also be discussed as a problem of timing, wherein the decision maker must be aware of the decision timing (Smida, 2006).
The conceptual framework is the strategy that has been mainly used in studies of decision timing as a field of organizational studies (Sanabria, Saavedra & Smida, 2014).Some authors define the concept of strategy as strategic decisions (Smida, 2006), creating decision-making processes that are associated with managing strategic gaps between an organization and the environment (Harrison, 1996).
Henry Mintzberg defined strategy as a plan, among other things, that is a series of courses of action that are consistently predetermined as a guide (Henry Mintzberg, 1987a), emphasizing the common idea of multiple definitions, where strategy frameworks are determinant of future decisions through a predetermined process and planned situations (Montoya, 2010).Mintzberg (1987) dealt with the concept of strategy, searching for more tangible aspects for researchers, defining it as a pattern in a stream of decisions, with a commitment to action.In this definition, there are intended strategies and realized AD-minister Nº. 31 julio-diciembre 2017pp. 93 -114 • ISSN 1692-0279 • eISSN 2256-4322 strategies, where intended and realized strategies are classified as deliberate strategies and unintended strategies are emergent strategies.
An emergent strategy comes about despite various, existing intentions (Mariani, 2007;Mintzberg & Waters, 1985).Paradoxically, the emergent strategy is arguably the new pattern of the altered intentions (Mariani, 2007;Mintzberg & Waters, 1985).In addition, Mintzberg outlined the idea of a cycle between strategies.Based on his definition of intended strategies, realized strategies today have an intertemporal relationship with the intended strategies in a subsequent period (Montoya, 2010).These processes are important for organizational adaptability (Kopmann, Kock, Killen, & Gemünden, 2017) Montoya & Montoya (2013) further developed the findings of Mintzberg, suggesting that there is a cyclical relationship between deliberate and emergent strategies, where the agent or organization solves urgent problems with a set of representations, evaluations, perspectives of the environment, past experiences and real-world expectations, which feeds on itself through experiences, with a view of improving, implicating a rearrangement of resources at a cost (Montoya & Montoya, 2013).This means that a cycle could be proposed for the decisionmaking process, and decision timing is subject to adjustment between the current environmental conditions that require a commitment to action and the habit of the decision-making process.
It is this sense, this article aims to contribute to the understanding of decisiontiming problems from the perspective of deliberate and emergent strategies that are used in organizations.To achieve this, the first part of the article uses a methodological description to address the problem, divided into an interpretation of the concept of decision timing based on elements of deliberate and emergent strategies.In addition, verification of these concepts were proposed with the development of a strategy workshop focused on decision timing.The second part presents the results of the theoretical change and the workshop.Finally, the last section states the main conclusions.

METHODOLOGY
The methodology has two parts (see Table 1).The first part generated theoretical associations and the second is a strategy workshop.

Theoretical Associations
The generation of theoretical associations is based on inherent aspects in the process of forming the strategy in relation to the deliberate and emergent strategies, (Mintzberg & Waters, 1985;Mintzberg, 1978Mintzberg, , 1987;;Mintzberg, Bruce, & Lampel, 2003;Montoya, 2010;Montoya & Montoya, 2005, 2013) and the few concepts of decision timing found in the literature (Smida, 2006) and result of the search of information in the Scopus database, taking into account the following search equation: TITLE(("decision making" AND ("timing" OR "moment of decision" OR "decision moment")) OR ("decision timing")).Incidentally, the psychological grief processes were associated with these theoretical concepts (Bowlby, 1993;Kübler-Ross, 1993).
With the results of the information search, the documents are reviewed from the initial reading of the title, summary and conclusions, with the purpose of a preliminary discard, followed by reading the rest of the contents of the document, which were classified in: direct contributions, applications, and documents not related to the theme.The claim with this review is that it is the tracking of elements that helps to explain the moment of decision.
Finally, an explanatory relationship is sought between these elements identified in the literature at the moment of decision, the strategy formation process (deliberate and emergent strategies) and the grieving process.

Workshop Description
The second part of the methodology included formulating the strategy workshop based on the "beer game" (Senge, 1995), which is used as a tool to identify the elements that agents take into account when making decisions in regard to the deliberate strategy and emergent strategy when confronted with truncating elements that disrupt the agents' plans.The workshop was carried out with 48 students from the Gestión Estratégica in the Facultad de Minas of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in the second semester of 2015, with the premise that they are students completing their curricula, mainly in the fields of Industrial Engineering and Administrative Engineering, and are in the process of training to assume managerial positions in their professional lives.It is equally important to note that from the conception of the deliberate and emergent strategies one can have the presumption that all decisions are strategic as long as they have a pattern.
The workshop had three parts: the first dealt with the instructions, the second was the beer game and the third used a survey to identify the agents' perceptions of the game.

First Step: Instructions
The beer game was run in a room that had computers with a game application, using USB cables and an IP address to connect the devices and play the game.The game was explained to the students, indicating each of the parts of the supply chain.
Each player took on a role in the supply chain and decided the number of cases of beer to order, keeping in mind that there were costs for unattended orders and storage costs for the crates of beer.They were told that the aim of the game was to minimize the costs.To encourage student participation and obtain the best results in the game, they were told that the participant with the best performance would get a prize.

The Beer Game
The beer game is an educational activity developed by the Sloan School of Management of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which allows for visualization of the dynamics of a system of production and distribution of a beer-producing company where each player is free to make their own decisions (Senge, 1995).
As described by Senge (1995), the game follows the roles of a distribution chain.The first is the retailer, the second is the wholesaler and the third is the producer.Each of these roles makes a purchase from the next role.In each of the stages, there is an order fulfillment time of four weeks (Senge, 1995).
Each of the players forms a strategy based on the pattern in the flow of decisions generated with each of the orders, which is carried out with a plan, making this strategy a deliberate strategy.

Software
The beer game was played using the software posted on the "The Beer Game Portal" (Riemer & Christ, 2012).Demand can be modified by the administrator during the rounds of the game, ensuring control of the game's behavior by moderating the activity.Finally, the tool presents the production results as stocks and the costs generated in each of the game stages per participant.
The Game For the workshop, a 50-week round was established, which was run as follows: • -The first four weeks were used to familiarize the students with the tools; the players decided how many boxes to order with indications from the coordinator of the workshop (five cases), similar to the quantity demanded by customers during that period.• -From the fifth to the eighth week, the workshop coordinator continued to give the number of boxes to order (10 boxes); customers demanded 10 cases during this time.• -From the ninth week, the participants made the decision on how many boxes to order without any indication.Until the twelfth week, the customers demanded 10 boxes.• -In the thirteenth week, there was an unexpected increase in demand, up to 18 boxes, thereby loosening the players' plans for the following week; the demand returned to 10 boxes the next week.• -In the twentieth week, the game suddenly ended, a truncating element, resulting in the disruption of the deliberate strategy of the players.

Third
Step: Survey At the end of the game, the participants were asked to complete a survey that asked them for an alternative to solve the situation and the elements taken into account when making the decision.
The survey aimed to identify the impact of the breakdown of the plan and establish the emotions felt by the agents in this process.In addition, the participants were asked about their feeling for their plans and whether or not they felt anxiety when the deliberate strategy was destroyed.The variables that were evaluated in the survey are in Table 2:  Table 2

Research Objective Variable Description Authors
Identify the impact of disrupting the plan and establish the emotions felt by the agents, and the elements they took into account when making the decisions.

Bond
Identify the agents' perceptions of their bonds with their plans.Bowlby, 1993 Disrupting element Identify the agents' perceptions of the sudden end to the game as a plan disrupting element.

Montoya & Montoya, 2013
Grieving process stages Identify the agents' valuation of the grieving process stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) when the deliberate strategy was disrupted.

Kübler -Ross, 1993
Elements considered by the agents when making decisions Identify the elements the agents took into account when the emergent strategy occurred, based on the identifications in the systematic review of the literature, when making the decision.

RESULTS
This section of the article contains the research results, which are divided into the results of the theoretical findings in relation to the decision timing and the process of forming the strategy, focused on the deliberate and emergent strategies, resulting in a model of agent behavior at the time of the decision.The second part is based on the results of the survey in terms of the dynamics of the beer game as applied to students of the Gestión Estratégica of the Facultad de Minas.

Theoretical Results
The theoretical revision exercise proposed in the first part of the methodology highlights four aspects: (1) the existence of deliberate and emergent strategies and the operation of the cycle between them, (2) the emergence of the truncated element that deconstructs the deliberate strategy, (3) the decision space then transits through the process of mourning of the decision maker on the emerging strategy, and the generation of alternatives from variables identified in the literature, and (4) the typologies of the moment of decision.These elements will then be expanded and converge in the conception of the moment of the decision based on the deliberate and emergent strategies, which is explained at the end of this section.

Deliberate and Emergent Strategies and the Cycle That Exists Between Them
The concept of deliberate and emergent strategies was based on the contributions made by Mintzberg (1987), which explain why a strategy was intended or why it failed.Montoya (2010) and Montoya & Montoya (2013) explained the cycle found between deliberate and emergent strategies, which allows the agent to develop initiatives and at the same time remain viable within the decision-making system.This concept of creating a strategy from an evolutionary perspective where the agent has an incremental adjustment, which can be seen as learning between the leap from deliberate strategies to emergent ones, results in a truncating element concept.This disrupts the deliberate strategy (Montoya & Montoya, 2013) and forces the agent, according to their interests, to generate emergent strategies that allow them to remain viable.

Truncating Element That Disrupted the Deliberate Strategy
The agent, when creating an intended strategy to carry out, devises a plan, including activities, resources and responsibilities that will result in a strategy that leads to achieving a goal.These factors are immersed in the atmosphere or environment, which has natural elements that are not controlled by the agent, and generate uncertainties in the decision-making process.This uncertainty forms the possibility for truncating elements that disrupt the deliberate strategy.
Truncating element characteristics include: (1) prevents the effective continuation of the plan, (2) unpredictable or degraded importance during the formulation process, (3) generated by external elements, but can also be brought about by the decision-making agent, (4) becomes evident to the decision-making agent in the execution of the plan, (5) results in reactions that are related to the psychological stages of grief, (6) results in a decision space in the search for viability in the system and, (7) generates the moment of decision.
At the organizational level, truncating elements are evident in situations dealing with market competition; for example, when a company is about to launch a new product and its main competitor launches a substitute product.It also occurs when government regulations are translated into laws that go against the planned strategies.Another truncating element includes fluctuating economic variables, such as the representative market rate (RMR) or inflation, among others.

Decision Space
The decision space is generated after the agent identifies the existence of a disruptive element, passing through a series of emotions that are similar to the psychological grieving process described by Kübler -Ross (1993): denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, because the agent forms a bond with the plan and when the truncating element breaks that bond, it leads to the stages of the grieving process.
After reaching acceptance that the plan has failed, the agent will enter a decision space, exploring alternatives that will allow them to remain viable within the system.
The agent enters the decision space with a situation that is determined by the state created by the truncating element in relation to the feasibility of achieving the objective.There is another element in the decision space called possible solution, which must be configured with the situation and synced with the environment.Possible alternatives feed the elements of the agent, the situation and the actions of the decisions (see Table 3).

Perspective
Element Authors Simon, 1982(Simon, 1982) Reutilization Montoya & Montoya, 2013 Acquired tools Sterman, 1994(Sterman, 1994) (Sterman, 1994) (Sterman, 1994) (Sterman, 1994) (Sterman, 1994) (Sterman, 1994) (Sterman, 1994) (Sterman, 1994) (Sterman, 1994) (Sterman, 1994) (Sterman, 1994)  The decision space is the transition between the cycle, which indicates the end of a deliberate strategy and marks the beginning of the emergent strategy.The decision space does not follow the rhythm of physical time; in fact, in this state, the decisionmaking agent is removed from time marked by a clock.The timing is determined by the synchronization between the situation and the possible solution that enables the creation of an emergent strategy for achieving the objective, Kairos time.

Rationality
The decision space allows the agent to learn because it provides the opportunity to reconfigure skills, beliefs, resources and perceptions of the environment in order to overcome the obstacle generated by the truncating element.

Typology of the Decision Timing (Emergent strategy)
When a possible solution is generated, fed by elements of the agent, environment or decision action, which are synchronized with the situation (used by the agent in the decision space), the emergent strategy arises, of which there are two types.
The first, is an instantaneous emergent strategy, which enables the agent to leave the decision space and create a new intended strategy, which leads to a new course of action that achieves the initial strategy.The second, is an emergent course of action followed until the realized strategy; in this situation, the agent does not have a plan after the truncating element, but uses an emergent course of action until the established objective is achieved.
Thus, the moment of decision occurs in the cycle between the deliberate strategy and the emergent strategy, where the agent contemplates the truncating element that disrupted the deliberate strategy, deals with the emotions related to the breaking of the bond, evaluates the situation, and creates possible alternatives to solve the problem and exit the decision space.This does not have a linear temporality and allows for the creation of an emergent strategy that can lead to a new deliberate strategy based on a new intended strategy, or, to an emergent course of action to be followed until the realized strategy.
The following figure graphically expresses the concept of decision timing in relation to the cycle between the deliberate and emergent strategies, decision space and temporality (See Figure 1).

Results of the Beer Game Survey
This section contains the results of the survey completed by the 48 students, who were between 17 and 26 years in age, that participated in the beer game in order to recognize the perceptions and emotions of the participants during the game (See Table 4).91.7% of participants were interested in the reward.In addition, 83.3% of participants indicated that they created a plan after the weeks that were guided by the moderator of the game (See Graph 1), indicating that the agents had a deliberate strategy.Also, 97.1% of students declared that they had created a bond with their plans, leading to a greater possibility of emotions related to the psychological grieving process, which is consistent with the fact that 77.1% of respondents said they felt anguish when their plan was not executed faithfully (See Graph 2).

Graph 1. Plan creation
After the first eight weeks that were guided by the moderator, did you create a plan to deal with the remaining weeks and win the prize?As for the abrupt end of the game, 77.1% of students surveyed indicated that the game should have continued, allowing them to implement the devised plan, indicating that the abrupt end of the game disrupted the agents' plans because the participants expected the activity to last 50 weeks.
For the emergent strategy, 60.4% of those surveyed confirmed that they at least agreed with the fact that if an agent quickly discards the deliberate strategy, emerging strategies will be created more efficiently (see Graph 3) In addition, 68.8% of the participants believed that they should have changed their plan by at least 70% in response to the truncating element (see Graph 4).Finally, when looking at the participants in terms of the elements that they took into account in the game after the truncating element, when looking for a way to remain viable in the system to make decisions and win the reward, i.e. to create emergent strategies, there were medium, high or very high levels.81.3% were looking to exploit the results (See Graph 5), which was not as strong in the exploration strategies, regardless of the results, where most of the surveyed group was found at the medium level.54.2% said they would base their strategy on attaining the reward.In the case of information and uncertainty and how they affected the game, 79.2% of participants indicated that would take them into account.Also, they accepted the complexity of creating emergent strategies; 87.5% of participants indicated that they would use past experiences (See Graph 6) and 97.9% said that they would use rationale (See Graph 7), indicating the participation of elements, such as the exploitation of alternatives, taking into account the reward, information and uncertainty, complexity, past experiences, and rationale, in the creation of emergent strategies.

AD-MINISTER
The beer game workshop led to the conclusion that, when there is interest in a reward, the agent generates a plan for achieving the goal.The agent builds a bond with this plan as the agent recognizes the resources that were invested in its design (time, knowledge, opportunities, money and space) and, when it cannot be implemented faithfully, the agent feels anxiety, which was evident when the game was finished abruptly and the students expressed interest in continuing as planned and not disrupting the deliberate strategy.
Since the truncating element disrupted the deliberate strategy, as with the abrupt end of the game, the participants said they felt the steps of the grieving process to a great extent when the bond was broken for the emotions of denial, bargaining and depression, but felt anger and acceptance at a medium level.
The participants in the workshop identified the need to change, to a considerable extent, 70%, their plan for other beer games, indicating the creation of different deliberate strategies that accommodate emergent strategies.
In terms of the elements expressed by the agents that participated in the workshop, they indicated that they would take into account elements of exploitation strategies, uncertainty and relevance of information, complexity, past experiences and rationale, to create emergent strategies to address similar situations with a truncating element.
In summary, the main contribution of this article is the compression on the moment of the decision, generated from the deliberate and emergent strategies.This explains why, that at the moment when the decision arises from the deconstruction, by a truncador element, the deliberate strategy of an agent and the need for the emergence of an emerging strategy continue to be viable in the system making decisions.
It is recommended for future research to bring these concepts to the organizational context, where the assessments that come from the theoretical linkages, and the development of the strategy workshop in the relationship at the moment of the decision, explained from the deliberate and emerging strategies, are validated; In order to be able to observe their daily functioning of the organization.

Figure
Figure 1: Moment of Decision Concept Anguish felt when plan not executed Did you feel anguish when the plan you designed was not executed faithfully?

Graph 3 .
Conception of the change from a deliberate strategy to an emerging strategy Do you agree that, if an agent quickly discards an obsolete plan, that agent will be able to think of alternatives more quickly?Nº. 31 julio-diciembre 2017 pp.93 -114 • ISSN 1692-0279 • eISSN 2256-4322 Graph 4. Concept of the change in the planIndicate on a scale of 1 to 10 how much you would change your plan (strategy) in order to deal with a similar situation after an abrupt end to the game?

Table 1 .
Stages of the methodology

Table 3 .
Elements of the Alternatives.Continuation

Table 4 .
Workshop participants