This paper explores the role of critical task specialists in strategic decision making and presents a theoretical model relating critical task specialist participation in decision making to the organization's overall strategy and the nature of the decision. This exploratory study examines scope and intensity of physician participation in hospital decision making. Intensity of critical task specialist participation is explained by content of the decision and by the organization's strategy, while scope of participation is explained by decision content. The findings suggest the need for more complex models of participation than are normally used in decision‐making research. The findings also suggest that executives, in managing strategic decision‐making processes, should pay attention to questions of both scope and intensity of participation. The results suggest that critical task specialists play a different role in the decision process, depending on specific decision content and organization strat