With the advances in information technologies, we have seen the possibilities of the CEO going "on-line" [24], and a variety of executive information support tools becoming available through terminal-based access. This article investigates whether the CEO's "front end" scanning process can be supported by some kind of information technology.
Empirical evidence suggests that a large portion of top executive time is spent scanning for information [13, 17, 18, 20]. There is also evidence that the amount of time managers spend scanning increases in dynamic environments [17]. Thus, scanning becomes an increasingly salient activity for top executives as environmental turbulence increases.
There has been a marked increase in environmental turbulence in the business environment in the last 15 years. Environmental turbulence refers to an increasing rate of environmental interconnection [26]. Turbulence does not refer to chaos in the environment, but rather to an increasingly complex interconnection that makes environments seem obscure to local observers who have no firsthand knowledge of the distant forces at work [2]. Furthermore, the tempo of business is becoming faster with changes in technology and speedier communications making the time span of important changes critical. Delayed information in such an environment gives further impression that sharp discontinuities abound, making events more difficult to comprehend.
For purposes of early warning and anticipation, a critical part of scanning in such environments is strategic. Strategic scanning refers to the acquisition of information about events, trends, and relationships in an organization's environment, the knowledge of which would be of assistance to top executives in identifying and understanding strategic threats and opportunities [1]. It remains the challenge for MIS professionals to design information systems to support and enhance the strategic scanning behaviors of top executives, especially in the case of turbulent environments.
It is difficult to design an information system to improve or even support any activity that is not Strategic Scanning
well understood. The necessity of understanding the strategic scanning process is no exception. This article seeks to do that and to draw some implications for designing information systems to enhance the strategic scanning process of CEOs. This is done by drawing on the results of an empirical study.