A Framework for Strategic Analysis in Dynamic and Complex Environments

Introduction

The strategic environment is characterized by features such as uncertainty, complexity, and rapid change (Alperen, 2017). Success, survival, and competition in these environments depend on the ability to scan and adapt to the environmental conditions, which requires obtaining insights to neutralize threats and use the opportunities (Sawyer et al., 2022). This purpose cannot be achieved except by simultaneous use of quantitative and qualitative analysis methods, challenging old assumptions, and encouraging new approaches (Clapper, 2014). Environmental scanning is a method that is in the position of foresight and strategy. By creating the necessary criteria, it allows prepared human minds to discern information, knowledge, and insight from the multitude of “signals” that occur daily (YahiaMarzouk & Jin, 2022). In most cases, the starting point for environmental scanning is the design of a scanning framework which helps practitioners decide what to look at and how to judge the usefulness of the information(Slaughter, 1999). In the external or objective world, where most of the frameworks of environmental scanning are considered, the world appears only as a great interlocking order of sensory levels, empirical forms (Kamoun-Chouk, 2022; Walker et al., 2014). The current environment is full of uncertainties and global challenges (Tajpour et al.,2022). Some phenomena are not observable and measurable by experimental methods and the predominant methods which are commonly used cause them to be neglected and ignored (Sawyerr & Ebrahimi, 2022). These statements stand as an enduring critique of approaches to environmental scanning that focus primarily on the empirical data from the external world and the achievement of objective facts (Patrick, 2022). Accordingly, Slaughter (1999) criticizes these objective frameworks and presents a new framework for environmental scanning using Wilber's integral model for recognizing phenomena that focuses on the internal aspects of the environment which have been ignored so far (Slaughter, 1999).

Our worldview of a phenomenon can limit some of the strongest options for understanding the unfavorable global situation and responding to it. Reflecting on all the frameworks of environmental scanning shows that foundations and underlying assumptions of recognition and having a worldview can lead to a deeper understanding and help to obtain a framework for strategic analysis of the dynamic environment. These foundations and assumptions have varied at different times with the advancement of science. In the classical sciences, most philosophical assumptions belonged to a traditional worldview (TWV) including the underlying assumptions of “reductionism, objective observation, linear causation, entity as the unit of analysis, determinism, and objective reality”(Dent, 1999) . Then, during the early twentieth century, not many scientists have been able to describe some of the complex phenomena and happenings by “order, reductionism, predictability, and determinism.” The order in the phenomena is not certain, the causes and effects are not linked, the emergent properties often appear seemingly out of the blue, and the related processes do not steer the systems to inevitable and distinct ends(Geyer, 2003). A complex whole exhibits properties that cannot be readily explained by understanding the parts (Holman, 2015) . Therefore, when it is not possible to understand all interactions, the known implicit variables must be increased, and the worldview should evolve into a random worldview with a weak cause-and-effect relationship. In the first case, we work in a deterministic environment with strong laws of causality(Elena Olmedo, 2016). However, in the latter case, the environment is unclear and the principle of causality of laws is weak (the duality of determinism-randomness)(Gulson et al., 2017).