longer term, technology stepped in to ease the problem (Park and Mason, 1990, pp. 157 202). Computers now provide organizational managements with the capability to efficiently process the information demanded by contingency management, and managerial resistance to the concept has softened.
The Essence of the Contingency Approach to Management
The contingency approach to management is a means of developing organizational strategy (Goold and Quinn, 1990, pp. 43 57). Strategic forecasting is the cornerstone in a contingency approach to management. A forecasting of conditions must be made with respect to environmental conditions, organizational characteristics, resource availability, market dynamics, product life cycle, human resources, research, and a host of other factors. The contingency approach to management, however, goes beyond the forecasting of conditions. In the contingency approach to management, a variety of possible scenarios are developed based upon forecasted conditions, and contingent strategies are developed for each probable scenario. Obviously, the process could strangle strategy development if the process itself is not managed effectively.
The contingency approach to management is designed to deal with uncertainties (McCabe, 1990, pp. 1203 1216). The contingency approach is somewhat of a middle ground between the situation specific approach to management, which sees each strategic decision situation as unique (Andrews, 1991, p. 25), and the universal approach, which holds that certain laws of cumulative experience are "almost universally observable" (Boston Consulting Group, 1980, p. 4). Contingency theory recognizes that usually no one way is the only way of doing something, and that any one way of doing something will not be equally effective in all situations (Galbraith, 1993, p. 73).
There are four major links in contingency relationships (Ginsberg and Venkatraman, 1985, p. 421). These lin...