Scenario Analyses as a Strategic Management Tool

This paper is about the role of scenarios in strategic management. Generally, a scenario depicts some feasible future state of organizational's environment and mostly includes the dynamic sequence of interacting events, conditions and changes that is nessasary to reach that state. The scenario approach changed considerably during the last two deacades. This reflected in the different functions ascribed to scenarios. The more traditional functions (in first generation scenarios) are tool for evaluation and selection of ctrategies, integration of various kinds of data, and exploration and identification of future possibilities. The more recent ones (in second generation scenarios) are making managers aware of environmental uncertainties, stretching of managers' mental models, and triggering and accelerating processes of organizational learning. The paper discusses especially the later cluster of functions wich are closely linked to each other.
By linking the dynamic-development process to Kolb's learning cycle and strategic management, the strategic learning cycle can be enhanced. The strategic learning cycle elucidates a number of bottlenecks that may seriously hinder learning within strategic management. Scenarios seem to dissolve these bottelnecks and in doing so support strategic learning.