Environmental Scanning in Support of Planning and Decision Making: Case Studies at Selected Institutions of Higher Education. AIR 1990 Annual Forum Paper.

This paper presents a comprehensive case analysis of formal environmental scanning processes in three different institutions of higher education. The study focuses on how environmental scanning activities are organized and used to support institutional planning and decision-making. Special emphasis is placed on describing how environmental circumstances influenced the development of the environmental scanning process and analyzing how environmental scanning information is utilized within various institutional sectors. The research questions addressed at the case study sites are: (1) What events and circumstances led to the development of the environmental scanning process at the case site? (2) How is the environmental scanning process currently structured and organized within the case site? (3) How are the environmental domains defined and scanned by the organization? (4) How is environmental scanning information incorporated into the planning and decision making activities of the case site? (5) What is the perceived effectiveness of environmental scanning upon the planning and decision-making efforts at the case site? Results indicated that support from the chief executive officer was a necessary but not sufficient step in establishing a credible environmental scanning process; that decision makers were looking for ways to reduce environmental uncertaintly; and that scanning information was used for several functions including strategy formulation, problem identification, decision selling, and goal and objectives setting. Contains 39 references. (GLR)