Decision Environments investigates how decision environments shape the choices, actions, and capacity for renewal of individuals, organizations, and networks. The group is interested in why knowledge, capabilities, and new opportunities do not always translate into action. In particular, we examine what kinds of practices, structures, and forms of interaction enable change. This perspective helps us understand how decision environments shape the emergence, adoption, use, and impacts of innovations.
Our research draws on organizational decision-making and behavior, behavioral economics, practice theory, and open strategy research. A key premise is that decision-making is shaped both by the current environment and by past choices and established practices. At the same time, actors can reshape how problems are interpreted, alternatives are constructed, and futures are envisioned.
Key research themes
- Decision environments and renewal: how structures, practices, goals, and past choices shape organizational action and the capacity for renewal.
- Strategy, participation, and agency: how strategy is shaped through interaction and how participation influences which alternatives are recognized and pursued. Participation is also examined in radically inclusive communities – such as global festival and technology communities – where strategy emerges without traditional hierarchy.
- Artificial intelligence, decision-making, and work practices: how AI transforms decision-making, work, capabilities, and organizations’ capacity for renewal.
- Change and social acceptance: how individuals and communities interpret change, and how participation, interaction, and networks influence the acceptance and implementation of new solutions.
The group collaborates with companies, public-sector organizations, cities, and national and international research networks. The group actively builds science-practice communities that bridge academic and practitioner contexts – both nationally and internationally. Our research employs a range of methods, including experimental designs, surveys and interviews, co-creation, foresight, and Delphi methods. The group also draws on field research conducted in extreme settings – contexts where normal structures, resources, or institutional supports are absent – to understand the boundary conditions of decision-making. The group plays a central role in the TRANSFORM-AI consortium, funded by the Strategic Research Council, which examines the relationships between artificial intelligence, leadership, decision-making, and the capacity for renewal.
