Investigating the Effects of Managers’ Cognitive Abilities on their Strategic Decision Making: A Case Study of Ardabil Management and Planning Organization

Decision making is one of the most important duties of managers and there has been an ongoing effort to improve this. In fact, recognizing and developing managers’ abilities and capabilities have an undeniable role in improving decision making. Hence, in the present study, the researchers investigated the impact of managers’ cognitive abilities on their strategic decision making, and how these abilities can be decisive in advancing, procrastinating or delaying and scoring the institution's grand plans. This research is a practical study in terms of purpose. The participants of the study included 10 managers of the Management and Program Organization of Ardabil province. The data was collected through a semi-structured interview and categorized using open coding and qualitative content analysis. The results revealed that management in decision-making prevents challenges and crises, and in case they occur, it alleviates them before they become insoluble and long-lasting. It was also found that the ability to solve problems accelerates the process of achieving goals in a systematic way and that creativity can help solve problems and crises with easy, low-cost and fast solutions. It can be concluded that experts’ critical thinking can address challenging issues and provide a ground for their solutions.