DECISION MAKING IN MANAGEMENT Managerial Decision Making

DECISION MAKING IN MANAGEMENT

Managerial Decision Making Decision making: the process by which managers respond to opportunities and threats by analyzing options, and making decisions about goals and courses of action. Decisions in response to opportunities: managers respond to ways to improve organizational performance. Decisions in response to threats: occurs when managers are impacted by adverse events to the organization.

Types of Decision Making Programmed Decisions: routine, almost automatic process. There are rules or guidelines to follow. Managers have made decision many times before. Example: Deciding to reorder office supplies. Non-programmed Decisions: unusual situations that have not been often addressed. No rules to follow since the decision is new. These decisions are made based on information, and a manger’s intuition, and judgment. Example: Should the firm invest in a new technology?

The Classical Model Classical model of decision making: a prescriptive model that tells how the decision should be made. Assumes managers have access to all the information needed to reach a decision. Managers can then make the optimum decision by easily ranking their own preferences among alternatives. Unfortunately, manаgers often do not have all (or even most) required information.

The Classical Model List alternatives & consequences Assumes all information is available to manager Rank each alternative from low to high Assumes manager can process information Select best alternative Assumes manager knows the best future course of the organization

The Administrative Model of decision making: Challenges the classical assumptions that managers have and process all the information. l Bounded rationality: There is a large number of alternatives and information is vast so that managers cannot consider it all. l As a result, decision making is risky. Decisions are limited by people’s cognitive abilities. Incomplete information: most managers do not see all alternatives and decide based on incomplete information.

Why Information is Incomplete Uncertainty & risk Ambiguous Information Incomplete Information Time constraints & information costs

Decision Making Steps Recognize need for a decision Frame the problem Generate & assess alternatives Choose among alternatives Implement chosen alternative Learn from feedback

Decision Making Steps 1. Recognize need for a decision: Managers must first realize the need for which a decision must be made.

Decision Making Steps Recognize need for a decision Frame the problem Generate & assess alternatives Choose among alternatives Implement chosen alternative Learn from feedback

Decision Making Steps 2. Frame the problem: managers must frame problem for which decision is to be made.

Decision Making Steps Recognize need for a decision Frame the problem Generate & assess alternatives Choose among alternatives Implement chosen alternative Learn from feedback

Decision Making Steps 3. Generate alternatives: managers must develop feasible alternative courses of action. If good alternatives are missed, the resulting decision is poor. It is hard to develop creative alternatives, so managers need to look for new ideas. Evaluate alternatives: what are the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative? Managers evaluate. should specify criteria, then

Decision Making Steps Recognize need for a decision Frame the problem Generate & assess alternatives Choose among alternatives Implement chosen alternative Learn from feedback

Decision Making Steps 4. Choose among alternatives: managers rank alternatives and decide. While ranking, all information needs to be considered.

Decision Making Steps Recognize need for a decision Frame the problem Generate & assess alternatives Choose among alternatives Implement chosen alternative Learn from feedback

Decision Making Steps 5. Implement chosen alternative: managers must now carry out the alternative. Often a decision is made and not implemented.

Decision Making Steps Recognize need for a decision Frame the problem Generate & assess alternatives Choose among alternatives Implement chosen alternative Learn from feedback

Decision Making Steps 6 . Learn from feedback: managers should consider what went right and wrong with the decision and learn for the future. Without feedback, managers never learn from experience and might repeat the same mistake.

Decision Making Steps Recognize need for a decision Frame the problem Generate & assess alternatives Choose among alternatives Implement chosen alternative Learn from feedback

Evaluating Alternatives Is the possible course of action: Legal? Ethical ? Economical? Practical?

Evaluating Alternatives Is it legal? Managers must first be sure that an alternative is legal both in this country and abroad for exports. Is it ethical? The alternative must be ethical and not hurt stakeholders unnecessarily. Is it economically feasible? Can our organization’s performance goals sustain this alternative? Is it practical? Does the management have the capabilities and resources to do it?

Group Decision Making Many decisions are made in a group setting. Groups tend to reduce cognitive biases and can call on combined skills, and abilities. There are some disadvantages with groups: Group think: biased decision making resulting from group members striving for agreement. Usually occurs when group members rally around a central manger’s idea (CEO), and become blindly committed without considering alternatives. The group tends to convince each member that the idea must go forward.

Improved Group Decision Making Devil’s Advocacy: one member of the group acts as the devil’s advocate and critiques the way the group identified alternatives. Dialectical inquiry: two different groups are assigned to the problem and each group evaluates the other group’s alternatives. Points out problems with the alternative selection. Top managers then hear each group present their alternatives and each group can critique the other. Promote diversity: by increasing the diversity in a group, a wider set of alternatives may be considered.

Devil’s Advocacy v. Dialectic Inquiry Devil’s Advocacy Presentation of alternative Dialectic Inquiry Alter. 1 Alter. 2 Critique of alternative Debate the two alternatives Reassess alternative accept, modify, reject Reassess alternatives accept 1 or 2, combine

Organizational Learning & Creativity Organizational Learning: Managers seek to improve member’s ability to understand the organization and environment so as to raise effectiveness. The learning organization: managers try to improve the people’s ability to behave creatively to maximize organizational learning. Creativity: is the ability of the decision maker to discover novel ideas leading to a feasible course of action. A creative management staff and employees are the key to the learning organization.

Individual Creativity Organizations can build an environment supportive of creativity. Managers must provide employees with the ability to take risks. Many of these issues are the same as for the learning organization. If people take risks, they will occasionally fail. Thus, to build creativity, periodic failures must be rewarded. This idea is hard to accept for some managers.

Building Group Creativity Brainstorming: managers meet face-to-face to generate and debate many alternatives. Group members are not allowed to evaluate alternatives until alternatives are listed. Be creative and radical in stating alternatives. When all are listed, then the pros and cons of each are discussed and a short list created. Production blocking is a potential problem with brainstorming. Members cannot absorb all information being presented during the session and can forget their own alternatives.

Building Group Creativity Nominal Group Technique: Provides a more structured way to generate alternatives in writing. Avoids the production blocking problem. Similar to brainstorming except that each member is given time to first write down all alternatives he or she would suggest. Alternatives are then read aloud without discussion until all have been listed. Then discussion occurs and alternatives are ranked.

Building Group Creativity Delphi Technique: provides for a written format without having all managers meet face -to-face. Responses are received and summarized by top managers. These results are sent back to participants for feedback, and ranking. Problem is distributed in written form to managers who then generate written alternatives. The process continues until consensus is reached. Delphi allows distant managers to participate.

h T n a Y k u o ! !