decision-making areas that the book covers include renewable energy, green innovation, logistics in a circular economy, interconnected logistics, sustainable green
freight transport, agri-food in circular economy, territorial transformation, sustainable supplier segmentation, and information overload and health. The aim of the
book is not to focus on one particular industry or a particular topic. It is rather to see
how strategic and managerial decisions are taken in different industries and topics
around sustainability.
Managerial and Strategic Decision-Making
“Managers are invested with the task of making decisions which routinely affect the
value and viability of firms” (Rowe et al. 1984). Decision-making is generally
defined as a cognitive process which results in evaluating and selecting one or
more alternatives from among a set of alternatives. The decisions which are made
by managers not only could affect the value and viability of their firms but also could
affect the value and viability of their environment. Each and every decision made by
managers could impact the economic, environmental, and social dimensions of their
firm and their environment. For instance, designing package for food products could
impact the profitability of the company, the health of consumers of the product as
well as the environment depending on whether the material used in the package can
be recycled or not (Rezaei et al. 2019).
Over the past decades formal theories of decision-making such as expected utility
theory and game theory have been recognized as models of rational decision-making
in organizations (Simon 1979). Rational decision-making theories assume that
people/organizations optimize their goals (maximizing profit, minimizing costs).
While very useful in many circumstances, in some other circumstances, these
theories are not able to fully represent the way people/organizations make decisions.
Behavioral decision-making theories (Slovic et al. 1977; Kahneman and Tversky
2013) have tried to model decision-making process closer to its reality. Sustainability is a multi-dimension concept. This implies that making decision in sustainability
is difficult. It contains economic, social, environmental dimensions which cover
many soft and hard aspects, from cultural aspects to chemical formulation of the
materials used in production. One should analyze many factors which form sustainability and at the same time investigate the impact of the decisions. This is why many
researchers in this field investigate one or some dimensions of sustainability and not
its whole. It is about a trade-off. Conducting deep analysis necessitates narrow
focusing while getting a holistic comprehension comes at the cost of details. We
need both.
In this book, each chapter will discuss one or several decision-making problems
with potential impact on sustainability. While some chapters are deep into a particular dimension of sustainability in a particular decision-making context, some
provide a rather big picture. Perhaps, as one direct consequence, the methods used
viii
Strategic Decision-Making for Sustainable Management of Industrial Networks
freight transport, agri-food in circular economy, territorial transformation, sustainable supplier segmentation, and information overload and health. The aim of the
book is not to focus on one particular industry or a particular topic. It is rather to see
how strategic and managerial decisions are taken in different industries and topics
around sustainability.
Managerial and Strategic Decision-Making
“Managers are invested with the task of making decisions which routinely affect the
value and viability of firms” (Rowe et al. 1984). Decision-making is generally
defined as a cognitive process which results in evaluating and selecting one or
more alternatives from among a set of alternatives. The decisions which are made
by managers not only could affect the value and viability of their firms but also could
affect the value and viability of their environment. Each and every decision made by
managers could impact the economic, environmental, and social dimensions of their
firm and their environment. For instance, designing package for food products could
impact the profitability of the company, the health of consumers of the product as
well as the environment depending on whether the material used in the package can
be recycled or not (Rezaei et al. 2019).
Over the past decades formal theories of decision-making such as expected utility
theory and game theory have been recognized as models of rational decision-making
in organizations (Simon 1979). Rational decision-making theories assume that
people/organizations optimize their goals (maximizing profit, minimizing costs).
While very useful in many circumstances, in some other circumstances, these
theories are not able to fully represent the way people/organizations make decisions.
Behavioral decision-making theories (Slovic et al. 1977; Kahneman and Tversky
2013) have tried to model decision-making process closer to its reality. Sustainability is a multi-dimension concept. This implies that making decision in sustainability
is difficult. It contains economic, social, environmental dimensions which cover
many soft and hard aspects, from cultural aspects to chemical formulation of the
materials used in production. One should analyze many factors which form sustainability and at the same time investigate the impact of the decisions. This is why many
researchers in this field investigate one or some dimensions of sustainability and not
its whole. It is about a trade-off. Conducting deep analysis necessitates narrow
focusing while getting a holistic comprehension comes at the cost of details. We
need both.
In this book, each chapter will discuss one or several decision-making problems
with potential impact on sustainability. While some chapters are deep into a particular dimension of sustainability in a particular decision-making context, some
provide a rather big picture. Perhaps, as one direct consequence, the methods used
viii
Strategic Decision-Making for Sustainable Management of Industrial Networks