Advancing Towards Model-Based Decision-Making : A Qualitative Case Study at a Swedish Whisky Start-Up

Sammanfattning: This study investigates decision-making processes in respect to the maturation time and the marketed quantities of single malt whisky in a Swedish distillery start-up. At first, the literature regarding decision-making in both start-ups and larger organisations has been reviewed. It can be concluded that decision-making in start-ups, compared to their established counterparts, is more based on heuristics and continuously exposed to several biases. In the following, a general resource exploitation model is presented in the context of deterministic decision-making and adjusted towards whisky casks as deposits of nonrenewable resources. The consecutive case study is conducted in a Swedish distillery start-up. Findings indicate that the start-up is exposed to a high market dynamic and expert-knowledge is of high importance. In the start-up, these experts make decisions regarding the maturation times and the quantities of the marketed whisky. Nevertheless, the optimal exploitation model can be implemented into daily operations and delivers additional data for decisions. Planning can evolve from a mainly cost-based towards a profit-maximising perspective. However, the quality of the model results are expected to be limited, due to the deterministic nature of the model in a highly dynamic environment. This effect may be even amplified by input parameters, which cannot be precisely determined.Therefore, the industry knowledge of the decision-maker appears to be the most important factor for decision-making processes in this industry.