Team Process, Sharing Relationship Between Mental Models And Strategic Decision-making Quality Of The Executive Team

Top Management Team as the main initiator and leader plays a leading andcentral role in the survival and development of enterprises. At present, researchesabout the top management team are mainly focused on the TMT demographiccharateristics or key elements of team processes, such as conflict and so on. A smallnumber of the research results about the TMT demographic charateristics, teamprocesses, enterprise’s strategy as well as strategic decision-making of TMT are notstable. These could be due to the lack of analysis of TMT decision-making andcognition process. This research holds that the internal mental model of TMT is afeasible perspective. Because some researchers found that the result of TMT’sdecision is the result of TMT’s cognitive. What’s more, a successful and effectivestrategy can mostly be made by cognitive interaction between executives. So it is afeasible method to make a study on decision-making of TMT from the perspective ofshared mental model of TMT.Based on the comprehensive study, analysis and literature research on teamprocess, shared mental model and the quality of decision-making, this study developsa conceptual model which expresses the relationships between team process, sharemental model and the quality of decision-making. We get samples by issuingquestionnaires, interviewing, sending E-mails to TMT. Then we make correlationanalysis, factor analysis, regression analysis and path analysis by using SPSS16toexamine the influence that each dimensions of team process and shared mental modelhave on the quality of decision-making. Finally, we discuss the intermediation ofshared mental model in the relationship between team process and the quality ofdecision-making. Through validation analysis on the assumption, we get followingconclusions:(1) TMT’s shared mental model is the interpretation and perception of TMTmembers to enterprise strategic task. It makes team members form a rightinterpretation and expectation to the team tasks, which helps the formation of correctteam decision-making. The result of the statistical analysis shows that shared mental models have a positive impact on the quality of TMT’s decision-making.(2) Through the analysis of intermediation, it can be concluded that sharedmental model has a positive intermediation in the relationship between team processand the quality of TMT’s decision-making.(3) We conclude that there are three significant path in the path analysis to thequality of decision-making.