Organizational Decision Making

Making a quality, well-thought-out decision is extremely important in an organization. Certain decisions may have the power to make or break the manager's job, or even the organization as a whole. Peter Drucker states, "a decision is a judgement...a choice between alternatives." When making a decision a manager must evaluate all alternatives and the solutions that will result from those alternatives. Slack & Parent recognized two types of decisions: Programmed and Nonprogrammed. Programmed decisions are one's that managers face regularly. This may be a hockey coach deciding what line plays next, or a manager of a store deciding to exchange a returned item, as stated in the book. Nonprogrammed decisions are those in which a manager does not face regularly. Oftentimes with nonprogrammed decisions, the manager has no past experience to base his alternative ideas off of, therefore he may enter the decision making process 'blind'. Decisions in a sport organization are often made under one of three conditions: certainty, risk, and uncertainty. Certainty occurs when the manager is aware of all alternatives and the costs and benefits of each alternative. This means the manager is well-informed of what may happen after the final decision has been made. The most common condition is risk. This is when a manager knows all alternatives but is unaware of the costs and benefits of each. The manager must make their decision based on a subjective processes based off of past experiences. Uncertainty comes when alternatives and outcomes are all unknown. These decisions can be considered the one's that could 'make or break' the managers career. Slack and Parent recognized two Individual Decision Making approaches. The first is called the 'rational model'. This model uses a step by step analysis of the alternatives and decision making process. These steps are, briefly: monitor the decision environment, define the problem relating to the decision, diagnose the problem, identify and analyze the alternatives, select and implement the best alternative, and evaluate the decision to be sure that the original problem has been solved. The second individual approach is called 'the administrative model'. These decisions are followed by time constraints, and the managers are often times not able to analyze all alternatives. A manager is then forced to settle for the best alternative at the time. Slack & Parent also analyzed Organization decision making approaches. The first is 'management science', in which numbers and statistics are used to make decisions. There is also the Carnegie Model in which managers form coalitions, usually one manager from each department involved, and make decisions based on each managers thoughts and input. The third approach is 'the structuring of unstructured processes' where major decisions are broken into smaller decisions that collectively contribute to the major decision. They also created a three phase decision making process: identification, development, and selection phase. The fourth approach is 'The Garbage Can Model' which states that several aspects of organizations are changing as the decision making process is happening. Therefore, choices are made when problems come together with the right solutions and participants. The influence a decision can make on an organization can often times lead to a great amount of stress for the manager. It is extremely important to analyze all alternatives, and the costs and benefits that could occur because of them.