Identification of Factors Affecting the Strategic Thinking inOrganizationsShahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and Health Services,Tehran- A Case Study

The complexity of management of organizations, encouragemanagers to long term strategic planning to address the internal andexternal issues. Environmental monitoring, strategic thinking, strategicdecision making and planning are the requirements of Strategicplanning. Identification of different aspects of strategic thinking in theorganization provides a clear understanding of strategic planning formanagers. This study is to identify factors affecting the strategicthinking of managers and experts in the School of Medical Sciences andHealth Services in shahid Beheshti University. The study is based onthe Descriptive-survey method. 250 employee and managers of thefaculty of Medical Sciences and Health Services of Shahid BehshtiUniversity are the statistical population of the survey. The sample sizeof the study estimated as 148 people using Cochran's sample sizeformula. The study used the random sampling methods. A standardquestionnaire based on Goldman model used for data collecting. 402questions in 5 point Likert scale were used. The reliability ofquestionnaire estimated as 0.89 using Cronbach's alpha coefficient.Moreover, in order to data analyze, the correlation test with SPSS22software was used. The research hypothesis is to review the importanceand impact of every identified factors of strategic thinking inorganization. According to the analysis of this study, there is ameaningful and positive relation between education and conceptualthinking. It means that the level of conceptual thinking and foresightincreases alongside with the level of education. There is also a negativeand meaningful relation between aging and foresight, which means thatthe level of foresight decreases by aging. Considering the significanceand the determining role of strategic thinking within an organization,results also show that from among factors in this study, clever thinkingwas the most important factor followed by foresight, systematicthinking and conceptual thinking next in rank.

Keywords:

Systemic thinking , Strategic planning , Strategic thinking , Organizational factors