The place of qualitative notions in company decision-making
Martin Callingham
A company's decision-taking is complex and cyclical, not sequential. The process is determined by its personality (definable in terms of vision, culture, and particularly spirit) and its 'mental health'. Contrary to received theory, in a healthy company environment, 'facts' tend to function as modifiers of thought and therefore decision, rather as prescriptive 'oughts'. In such companies, structure become collaborative rather than hierarchical, encouraging a rich and multi-faceted information climate, with qualitative notions - 'food for thought' - at its heart, and springing from its diversity of facts, knowledge and understanding....