MODEL FOR MAKING TACTICAL DECISIONS Austin Porter is a sophomore at a small Midwestern university. He is considering whether to continue at this university or to transfer to one with a nationally recognized engineering program. Austin’s decision-making process included the following:

a. He surfed the web to check out the sites of a number of colleges and universities with engineering programs.

b. Austin wrote to five of the universities to obtain information on their engineering colleges, tuition and room and board costs, the likelihood of being accepted, and so on.

c. Austin compared costs of the five other schools with the cost of his present school.

He totaled the balance in his checking and savings accounts, estimated the earnings from his work-study job, and asked his parents whether or not they would be able to help him out.

d. Austin’s high-school sweetheart had a long heart-to-heart talk with him about their future—specifically, that there might be no future if he left town.

e. Austin thought that while he enjoyed his present college, its engineering program did not have the national reputation that would enable him to get a good job on either the East or West Coast. Working for a large company on the coast was an important dream of his.

f. Austin’s major advisor agreed that a school with a national reputation would make job hunting easier. However, he reminded Austin that small college graduates had occasionally gotten the kind of jobs that Austin wanted.

g. Austin had a number of good friends at the university, and they were encouraging him to stay.

h. A friend of Austin’s from high school returned home for a long weekend. She attends a prestigious university and told Austin of the fun and opportunities available at her school. She encouraged Austin to check out the possibilities elsewhere.

i. A friendly professor outside of Austin’s major area ran into him at the student union.

She listened to his thinking and reminded him that a degree from this university would easily get him into a good graduate program. Perhaps he should consider postponing the job hunt until he had his master’s degree in hand.

j. Two of the three prestigious universities accepted Austin and offered financial aid.

The third one rejected his application.

k. Austin made his decision.

Required:

Classify the events a through k under one of the six steps of the model for making tactical decisions described in your text.

Exercise