The Effects of Scenario Planning on Participant Decision-Making Style: A Quasi-Experimental Study of Four Companies

Abstract
This research examines changes in participant decision-making styles as a result of participation
in scenario planning. Results indicate that participants tend to shift toward more intuitive-based
decision-making styles after participating in scenario planning. These findings support and add
further evidence to previous investigations into decision-making style and scenario planning. To
explore this relationship, we employed a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest one-group design with
scenario planning as the intervention. Confirmatory factor analysis provided validity of measurement
scores and pair samples t tests were used to test hypotheses on the five factors of the General
Decision-Making Styles Survey (GDMS). This study documents the responses from participants (n =
170) from 10 organizations using the General Decision-Making Style Survey.
Keywords: Scenario planning, decision-making styles, mental models, strategic thinking, long-range
planning

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