Structural Decision Intelligence: From Domain Performance to Challengeable Structural Propositions for Executive Decision-Making

Abstract

Organisations commonly govern performance through separate functional domains, including operations, quality, workforce, finance and digital transformation. Although individual performance reports may be accurate, consequential organisational conditions can arise from dependencies and constraints that cross these reporting boundaries. This working paper proposes Structural Decision Intelligence (SDI) as an executive-governance method for converting distributed organisational performance signals into explicit, challengeable structural propositions for decision-making. SDI treats a structural constraint or interacting configuration of constraints, rather than an individual performance metric, as the primary unit of executive decision. It specifies a repeatable protocol combining cross-domain signal detection, causal reasoning, dependency analysis, competing explanations, prospective consequences, proportionate intervention and subsequent challenge. A central feature is the separation of epistemic confidence, decision urgency and intervention reversibility. The method enables executives to act proportionately under uncertainty while preserving the evidence, assumptions and challenge conditions against which their decisions can subsequently be assessed. The paper positions SDI against established approaches including system dynamics, dynamic performance management, structured intelligence analysis, Theory of Constraints, high-reliability organising, decision theory and Decision Intelligence. It does not claim originality for these constituent techniques. Its candidate contribution is their integration into an explicit executive-governance sequence centred on testable structural propositions. Six falsifiable propositions and a proposed blinded, multi-case empirical evaluation are presented to assess detection lead time, decision relevance, reproducibility, prospective discrimination, responsiveness to disconfirming evidence and incremental value against competent conventional governance. SDI forms part of a wider research programme alongside Decomposition-Induced Governance Blindness and Governing Digital Benefit Claims Over Time, examining how organisations construct, assure and revise consequential propositions in complex systems. Publication status: Version 1.3, conceptual and methodological working paper (2026). Empirical validation remains outstanding. The paper is published in the author’s personal capacity and does not represent the official position of any employer or NHS organisation.