In important conflicts such as wars and labor-management disputes, people typically rely on the judgment of experts to predict the decisions that will be made. We compared the accuracy of 106 forecasts by experts and 169 forecasts by novices about eight real conflicts. The forecasts of experts...

Twenty-five years ago, the International Institute of Forecasters was established "to bridge the gap between theory and practice." Its primary vehicle was the Journal of Forecasting and is now the International Journal of Forecasting. The Institute emphasizes empirical comparisons of reasonable...

Empirical comparisons of reasonable approaches provide evidence on the best forecasting procedures to use under given conditions. Based on this evidence, I summarize the progress made over the past quarter century with respect to methods for reducing forecasting error. Seven well-established...

Managers are often advised, beat your competitors, which sometimes contrasts with the advice, do the best for your firm. This may lead managers to focus on comparative measures such as market share. Drawing on game theory, the authors hypothesize that managers are competitor oriented under...

A quantitative critique of 28 studies concludes that formal planning is valuable for firms. The results were particularly favorable for manufacturing firms: nine studies found formal planning to be associated with better performance and none found detrimental performance

In Armstrong (1982a), I examined alternative explanations to the empirical findings that supported the use of formal planning. In considering the possibility that researcher bias might lead to such results, I used Terpstra's (1981) evaluation scheme. Based on this test, poor methodology did not...

The formal planning process consists of five steps: specify objectives, generate strategies, evaluate strategies, monitor results, and gain commitment. Marketing planners frequently ignore steps in the formal planning process. One cannot argue, then, that 'the market' accepts formal planning. In...

A review of research from organizational behavior supported the guidelines by corporate planners: that is, use an explicit approach for setting objectives, generating strategies, evaluating strategies, monitoring results, and obtaining commitment. To determine whether these findings could be...

Three strategies for scientific research in management are examined: advocacy, induction, and multiple hypotheses. Advocacy of a single dominant hypothesis is efficient, but biased. Induction is not biased, but it is inefficient. The multiple hypotheses strategy seems to be both efficient and...

A committee created a fictitious author, Ian Mitroff, who published a paper that violated scientific guidelines. The Mitroff paper recommended an advocacy strategy for scientific research; it said that scientists should vigorously defend their initial hypothesis. I use the advocacy strategy to...