Strategic Management Thought

The Image Theory and Its Use in Individual and Organizational Decision-Making

Authors

1 Faculty member of Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

2 PhD student in Business Management, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

A brief look at both individual and organizational activities shows that decision-making is an inseparable part of each. Experts have attempted to explain the quality and cause of this important phenomenon. The result is the descriptive and prescriptive approaches that have looked upon decision-making from two different standpoints.
One theory which in mid - eighties and by adopting a descriptive approach defied other prescriptive models and views was the image theory. This is an attempt to explain the manner of real decision-making by individuals. According to this, the decision-maker has images of himself, his past, present and future. The way these images develop, their transformation and their interrelationships form the main bases of decision-making at both individual and organizational levels. The image theory takes decision-making as the result of how the structure, combination, coordination and cohesion of "self-image", projectiveness, planned image, and "executing image" are formed.

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Strategic Management Thought
Volume 1, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
April 2007
Pages 7-33
  • Receive Date: 21 March 2014
  • Accept Date: 21 March 2014