The Organizational Process of Decision-Making

The challenge when working with others to make a decision is that we all have our own methods of coming to a conclusion. The rational decision-making model is comprehensive in the fact that it requires the decision maker to define the problem, identify criteria for making the decision, weight the criteria, develop alternatives, evaluate alternatives and finally select the best alternative (Robbins, S.P., Judge, T.A. 2009). The challenge with utilizing this method is the fact that most of the time in real world situations, facts are either limited or missed, time compression causes an oversight on all potential alternatives and people tend to choose the easier route to make decisions (Robbins, S.P., Judge, T.A., 2009). Intuition is a powerful tool, however it can also lead to quick and potentially bad decisions (Robbins, S.P., Judge, T.A., 2009). I can recall a conversation with a leader about an employee that made an error administering a medication. The manager had not spoken with the employee or

Most decisions are made with analysis, but some are judgment calls not susceptible to analysis due to time or information constraints. Please write about a judgment call you’ve made recently that couldn’t be analyzed. It can be a big or small one, but should focus on a business issue. What was the situation, the alternatives you considered and evaluated, and your decision making process? Be sure to explain why you chose the alternative you did relative to others considered.

1. The four-step model for decision-making; See, Judge, Act, and Evaluate, applies onto the storyline by providing more insightfulness and reflection onto the decisions each character performs. In such cases, Sam uses this method by somewhat agreeing to let his daughter, Lucy, go into the foster care system. This was shown when he later confides and agrees to see Lucy on a limited amount of times each month. Even though at first, he was upset and furious having his only daughter taken away from him, he slowly managed to admit to this term when he recognized Lucy's happiness and safety.

Rational Organization increases efficiency and control and also brings down costs because the tasks are minimized to the core that they require almost no training for

“the systematic application of functional rationality to the self to attain certain individual ends”. Such a manager “dispassionately takes stock of himself, treating himself as an object, as a commodity. He analyses his strengths and weaknesses and decides what he needs to change in order to survive and flourish in his organization. And then he systematically undertakes a program to reconstruct his image ...” (p.59) “The continuous uncertainty and ambiguity of managerial hierarchies, exacerbated over time by masked conflict, causes managers to turn towards each other for cues for behaviour. They try to learn from each other and to master the shared assumptions, the complex rules, the normative codes, the underlying institutional logic that governs their world. ... Normally, of course, one learns to master the managerial code in the course of repeated, long-term social interaction with other managers” (p.37-8) “... one makes oneself alert to expediency by projecting outward the objectifying habit of mind learned in the course of self-rationalization. That is, the manager alert to expediency learns to appraise all situations and all other people as he comes to see himself - as an object, a commodity, something to be scrutinized, rearranged, tinkered with, packaged, advertised, promoted, and sold.” (p.119)

A department head who does not display qualities of a good leadership is a recipe for disaster. Dealing with someone who is incompetent and takes credit for your job can be frustrating and exhausting at times. There are ways to deal with such situations at work and this paper deals how to manage

Economists have often modelled human decision makers as completely rational. According to this model, rational people know their own preferences, gather and accurately process all relevant information, and then make rational choices that advance their own interests. However, Herbert Simon won a Nobel Prize in economics by pointing out that people are rational, but only boundedly so in that they seldom gather all available information, they often do not accurately process the information

Bounded rationality is defined as a major revision to the theory of rational decision making. It incorporated assumptions that accounted for imperfect information, decisions under uncertainty and perceived probability. It offered two new ways to attack decision problems using science and mathematics.

Rational choice theory accepts that all individuals attempt to effectively expand their preference in any circumstance and in this way reliably attempt to minimize their misfortunes. The hypothesis depends on the possibility that all people construct their choices in light of sound figuring’s, act with discernment when picking, and intend to increment either delight or benefit. Rational choice theory likewise stipulates that all unpredictable social wonders are driven by individual human activities. Accordingly, if a business analyst needs to clarify social change or the activities of social organizations, he needs to take a look at the balanced choices of the people that make up the entirety.

The rational decision-making model describes a series of steps that decision makers should consider if their goal is to maximize the quality of their outcome. In other words, if you want to make sure that you make the best choice, going through the formal steps of the rational decision-making model may make sense. The following are the steps taken to come to a rational decision: 1. Identify the problem, 2. Establish decision criteria, 3. Weigh decision criteria, 4. Generate alternatives, 5. Evaluate the alternative, 6. Choose the best alternative, 7. Implement the decision, 8. Evaluate the decision.

The concept of ‘rationality’ has been talked through the centuries. According to Grey (2013), rationality is a big question because of this proposition which has the meaning and difficulties seem to be defining of a whole set of issues which have resonated through both organisation theory and practice ever since. And rationality is the basis of a decision, rational decision makers are objective and logical, they reach the goal that maximises the value. Not only rationality is important to organisations, and also it can be identified in various kinds of management theories. This essay will introduce the different aspects of the concept of ‘rationality’ and make explanations that how these are recognised in different management theories.

Organizational behavior helps managers to improve the organization in a good way. Decision making process is the one of the behavior in human organizational behavior. According to McShane and Von Glinow (2000), “decision making a conscious process of making choices among one or more alternatives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs”. Decision making is a linear process and it includes six steps such as identifying the problems, gather and evaluate data, list and evaluate alternatives, select best action, implement the decision and getter feedback (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).

Owing to limited rationality of man, Herbert Simon contends that most decisions are based on limited rationality, that is, the organization is working like a brain. It would be impossible for organizations to attain perfection since their members have limited information-processing abilities (Morgan, G, 1997)

Simon presented the bounded rationality as a result of human and organization constraints. He sees that the managers would not achieve the requirements of rational behavior. He observed that different types of decisions can be processed in different ways, namely: programmed decisions and non-programmed decisions. The programmed decisions category included decisions that occur frequently. Managers are used to these types of decisions and they already have developed some kind of protocols and procedures for making them. These decisions usually are left for the lower posts in the organizational hierarchy.

Parker’s budgeting decision is a good example of an individual acting with bounded rationality. This term was introduced by Simon in 1957 (as cited in Tolbert & Hall, 2008) to argue that normative models of decision making, which assume fully rational and objective judgement (Teale, Dispenza, Flynn & Currie, 2003), are unrealistic because human rationality is limited. Parker’s judgement may have seemed rational to him, but it was not rational for the organisation, a subtle distinction about rationality made by Storing (as cited in Tolbert & Hall, 2008). Parker’s judgement was also not rational in that he did not have all available knowledge and awareness of risk, which are the conditions of normative models (Teale et al, 2003) and the “official theory” of management (Anthony, as cited in Teale et al, 2003, p. 14). For example, Parker did not know about the variations in the terrain when he made his decision, and he also assumed that the assistant workers could work at the same physical rate that he could. Both of these limitations were factors resulting in a risk to on-time task completion.