Decision Making Essay

Managers run organizations by the decisions they make on a daily basis. The quality of these decisions, to a smaller or greater degree, impacts the success or failure of an organization. Managers encounter challenges and opportunities every day. Some situations require actions that are very straightforward; others, not so simple. Some decisions need to be made right away, while others take a long period of time to be made. Decision making can be challenging, and it’s important we understand why. In this paper, we will cover the main characteristics of managerial decisions, the stages of decision making, and the tools a manager has to achieve efficient decision making in a challenging and uncertain work environment. Characteristics of Managerial Decisions Structure: For most routine decisions, there is a determined procedure, or structure, that helps managers solve a problem. If it’s a routine problem, then they have standard responses. In these situations, managers only have to implement previously stated solutions, from past experiences in the organization. Unfortunately, not all decisions are programmed. New problems arise all the time in an organization, and that’s when managers have to get creative to solve them. Past experience helps, so does intuition, but the decision maker, in this case, has to create, or rely on a method for making the decision. In this case, there’s no standard response. Uncertainty and Risk: As Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn (1994) point out, problem solving decisions in organizations are typically made under three different conditions or environments: certainty, risk, and uncertainty. When information is sufficient, and outcomes of decisions are predictable, you are working in an environment of certainty. However, for most important decisions, uncertainty is to be expected. Uncertainty exists when a manager doesn’t have enough information to assign probabilities to the consequences of different possible decisions. A manager might have a good guess, or opinion, but doesn’t know for sure if something will or won’t happen. Whenever there’s uncertainty, and something to lose, then there’s risk. Risk isn’t a bad thing; it’s just the fact that comes with any managerial decision. Choosing one alternative over another can imply losing time, or money, so every decision entails risk. Managers have to be aware that with their decisions they manage risk. With good planning and problem resolution, risk can be minimized and controlled. Contending Interests: J. Davids (2012) talks about decisions that affect people with contending interests. An example of this is a CFO who argues in favor of increasing long-term debt to finance a purchase. On the other hand, the CEO wants to minimize long-term debt and find the funds somewhere else. In another example, a marketing department wants more product lines to sell, the engineers want higher quality of products, and the production manager wants less variety of products to lower costs. In these situations, it’s up to the decision maker to fashion a workable decision that reflects an appreciation of all these antagonizing point of views. If a key player’s perspective isn’t taken into consideration, and the manager pushes forward in the decision process, the outcomes will probably not satisfy the decision makers’ plans. There are different approaches to managing participation of multiple players that we’ll touch on a bit later. Stages of Decision Making Situation: The first step in the decision making process is knowing the situation. This means, recognizing a problematic situation that exists, and must be fixed. This usually implies comparing things the way they are now, to what they should be. An example of this is comparing the actual expenses to the budgeted expenses. Another example is looking at this quarter’s sales, and comparing them to the previous quarter. The problem that needs to be solved is usually an opportunity that managers seek to take advantage of. Bowen, Lewicki, Hall, Hall (1997) present an interesting approach of looking at a problem. It’s a technique referred to as â€Å"framing† or â€Å"reframing†. There are four essential perspectives of organization and management theory that help us define a situation. * Structural.  This perspective deals with the activities, functions assignments, tasks and so forth. It’s basically who does what and who reports to whom. * Human. This point of view looks at issues of how people and organizations relate, how organizations satisfy people’s needs, provide meaningful work, productivity, and relationships in the organization. * Political. This frame of mind looks at the organization as a system with shifting bases of power, and conflicts between different groups fighting for limited resources. * Symbolic. The symbolic frame references the culture of the organization, made up by ceremonies, rites, stories, and so on. When dealing with a problem difficult to resolve, the manager can look at it, and use these different vantage points. This will help see the problem from a new perspective, and define the situation with a different understanding, and meaning of the problem. Options: Bateman and Snell (2011) refer to this stage in the decision making process, as â€Å"generating and evaluating alternative solutions†. What they mean by this is, once the problem is defined, the manager, or decision maker, has to develop different courses of action aimed at solving the problem. Solutions might be found by using similar tactics used in previous problems. Custom made solutions are the other option. These take creativity and probably more resources. This step is key in the decision making process. Many times managers don’t take the time to brainstorm and come up with alternatives. In a hypothetical situation where the decision maker is trying to improve the organization’s bottom line, there are many options. You can increase prices to improve margin, advertise your products’ quality to increase sales, drop prices to increase sales, open new service lines that will give you higher participation in the market, just to name a few. The point is: it’s important for the manager to take his time and consider all the options. Once managers have different options, they have to evaluate them, and come up with the best one. The best way of evaluating the options is measuring the consequences of the different alternatives. Measures such as lower costs, higher market share, bigger bottom line, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, just to name a few. Ethical aspects of decision making should also be considered in this step. Richard Ritti and Steve Levy (2010) combine what we previously mentioned about certainty, risk, and uncertainty, with alternative decisions. We can have an alternative solution that implies increasing production of a service line by 15%, but based on the uncertainty of the environment, we have a decrease in the demand by 20%. This, in retrospect would be a bad choice. What I mean by this is, not all results can be predicted with perfect precision. In an uncertain environment, what decision makers have to consider, is creating contingency plans. These are plans that will be implemented if the future develops differently than what expected. Choose: Once you’ve generated different options, and evaluated them, it’s time to choose which one is best. The manager must have an assertive attitude, and not over think the decision. Once the decision maker has all the information he’s going to have, he just has to take the leap and make the decision. Bateman and Snell (2011) bring in a few interesting concepts to this decision making step. These steps are maximizing, satisficing, and optimizing. * Maximizing: Maximize means, to make the most out of something, in this case, the decision. Maximizing requires looking carefully for a complete variety of alternatives, evaluating them, and then choosing the best. Maximizing is the better strategy for important decisions. Managers that are maximizers, plan systematically in solving problems, and their high expectations of quality drives them to achieve great results. * Satisficing: Satisficing is choosing the first satisfactory option, rather than looking for the optimal decision alternative. This concept was originally referred to by Herbert Simon (1947). He stated: â€Å"Most human decision making, whether individual or organizational, is concerned with the discovery and selection of satisfactory alternatives; only in exceptional cases is it concerned with the discovery and selection of optimal decisions. When managers make decisions, many times they are facing limitations, such as time barriers, unavailability of information, and other situations that make finding the optimal option impossible. When the decision isn’t of great importance, satisficing could be the optimal approach. * Optimizing: Managers have to balance their decisions. Since there are contending interests in many of the imp ortant decisions in the organization, managers have to find an alternative that meets multiple criteria, and achieves the organization’s goals. Act:  Once the problem has been recognized, alternatives generated and evaluated, and the choice has been made, someone has to act. Also known as the implementation process, managers have to plan it vigilantly. Sometimes there’s a â€Å"disconnect† between what was planned, and what is implemented. The people involved in the process assume things are just magically going to occur. This isn’t the case, so it’s up to the manager to ensure things are taking shape. Good communication is essential in this implementation process, especially since this is when all the change happens. People aren’t naturally comfortable with change, so the manager has to be clear with the steps that have to take place. The manager must manage the chronological order in which things have to happen and delegate the individuals responsible for each task. He must ensure everyone understands their role, and knows what the final outcome should look like. The buy-in from the different players in the organization, when implementing decisions that cause change, will dictate the outcome of the implementation stage. If needs were ignored when making the decision, or if the paths of communication haven’t been fluid in the process, it will be very hard to implement change effectively. The manager must take these things into consideration if he wants to avoid potential problems that arise in this step of the process. Evaluate: Evaluating the decision is the last step in the decision making process. It’s time for the results to determine whether the manager’s choice is having the effect it was intended to have. For this stage to be successful, there has to be measurable results; they must be quantifiable. For an adequate evaluation of the decision, a validating mechanism collects information and compares it to an expected value. That validating mechanism can be set and developed even before the solution to the problem is determined. If the decision made proves to be effective, and the results show that the goals were met, then this decision could serve another purpose elsewhere in the organization. The positive feedback will be welcomed by the manager, and reinforce the decision making process. If the results demonstrate negative results, then it’ll take some good analysis to see where things have gone wrong. Things might have gone wrong in any of the previous stages. It’ll take brainstorming, and effort to assess what things need to happen to put things on the right track. Participation in Decision Making As Bowen et al. (1997) point out, most changes in organizations not only require technical modifications, but alterations in the work and social satisfactions of the employees. This makes the challenge of implementing change even greater. It’s not only important that the new methods are efficient; they must also be accepted by the employees who will be implementing these changes. In this context, managing the participation of the employees in making a decision plays an important role. There are different approaches when making decisions that involve change. They can be grouped into different variants of authoritative decisions, mutual problem solving, and consultative decisions. In the authoritative decision alternative, the manager makes the decision alone. Then he puts together arguments and rational information to show the employees the advantages of change. In the mutual problem solving approach, the manager shares the problem with his employees, and the group works together to come up with a final decision. The consultative approach is a middle ground; the manager shares the problem with the group, obtains ideas and suggestions, and then makes a decision that may or may not reflect the employee’s contribution. There are advantages and disadvantages in making group decisions. The biggest one is that the acceptance of participants is high, mainly because they’ve had an opportunity to give their opinion. They feel like they’ve had a say in the new process, so they’ll naturally support it. It’s also a huge advantage in the implementation stage, because the employees understand what management is trying to achieve. Many times the subordinates bring knowledge and experience that even the manager might not have. It’s the employees who work in the details, and they might have good input in solving problems. One of the disadvantages of group decision making is the time it takes. A lot of time can be wasted meeting in groups to come up with good ideas. Another negative aspect is that groups tend to make riskier decisions because the responsibility doesn’t fall on just one person. In the same sense, group embers might not put that much effort into thinking of all the ramifications of their decisions, because they think someone else is probably thinking of that already. The main takeaway from participation in decision making is that it really depends on the situation, and the problem being solved. The challenge for the manager is to know when he should employ each of the decision making approaches according to the situation. A smart manager will know how to use these managing tools to make decisions that are not only efficient, but will also have the support and buy-in from the employees. Conclusion A good manager will assess each situation and find opportunities where change can be made; always looking for the organization’s best interest. When making important decisions, the manager will see the type of environment he’s in, if there’s certainty or not, and always account for the contending interests his decisions will undoubtedly face. A wise decision maker will recognize a situation that requires an intervention on his behalf. He will generate and evaluate different options, and apply the concepts of maximizing, satisficing, and optimizing to make the best decision. Not only does the manager choose; he acts. He takes responsibility and accountability for his choices, and makes sure there’s follow through in the implementation stage of the process. The decision maker will then evaluate the results, to validate that his decisions are having the results that were intended. If not, he’ll go back to the drawing board. Organizations live and die by the decisions made by managers, and to the extent that they can define problems, and make smart choices. Good decision making is found at the heart of all successful businesses.

Brave New World: How Technology Affects Society

October 29, 2012 Brave New World: How Technology Affects Society Brave New World, a place in which people are created from scientific labs through a process call the Bokanovsky Process, and where being born from parents is a shame for society. Where conditioning is use for training babies to act and think the way people in society wants them to do. A place where a popular drug call Soma is used to control and keep the society happy and stable, and causes principles and morals to disappear or change.Where entertainment is use to convince people of the phrase â€Å"everyone belongs to everyone†, and becomes a society that is always happy, no problems, and organized. The Bokanovsky Process is another way of reproducing ninety-six human babies from one egg by transforming it into buds, which each bud becomes an embryo. (pg. 17) Normally one egg produces one embryo which becomes one human adult, but in this case the Bokanovsky Process manipulates the egg to produce more than one em bryo by budding.After budding the egg for a couple of times it is dosed with significant amount of alcohol, and then later budded again until it creates more than eighty-six embryos, and since they’re all from the same egg they all are identical twins. Because the Bokanovsky Process is being used to reproduce more population, it has become one of the major instruments of social stability. (pg. 18) It causes people in society to wear uniforms with batches to identify what kind of twin they’re from, and what kind of job they are meant to do.Conditioning is done when the majority of the identical embryos are now full grown babies or children, they are placed in various repetition environments and experience in order to custom them the way they supposed to think and react. A very good example is when the babies are placed in front of books and flowers and start to like or get familiarize with it, once they are starting to like and giggle they give them electric shocks. It makes them get horrified or scared every time they see books and flowers, so that when they are older and full grown they would hate or not like books or flowers. (pg. 0) For society conditioning the children or babies that way is to make them hate the country, but at the same time love all the country sports so that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport(pg. 31), which helps the society increase in labor and income. Now Soma is a type of drug that works with society’s way of entertainment to avoid any unnecessary feelings, such as being in love, the feeling of wanting to form a family, or being stressed and worried. Soma is a drug that raises a wall into someone’s mind between reality and fantasy, which makes the person go into a soma holiday.As for the entertainment, Soma is always serve with coffee or as candy in many different places like restaurant and concerts while placing music by saying to take more soma or repeating the phrase everyone belong s to everyone. An example would be of a song like this, â€Å"Bottle of mine, it’s you I’ve always wanted! Bottle of mine, why was I ever decanted? Skies are blue inside of you, the weather’s always fine: for there ain’t no bottle in all the world like that dear bottle of mine. †(pgs. 8-79) Which basically describes how one feels after taking a couple of grams of Soma, which this actually helps to maintain control and organization in society. The Bokanovsky Process, Conditioning, Soma, and Entertainment all work together to create a world in which everyone is happy with no struggles, no problems or worries. A world where society is always in control and organized by using soma to keep the people conditioned as they are. Where there is no such thing as parents and family, love and friendship, and a new world of identicals with different jobs but with same culture. A Brave New World.

The History and Politics of Charter Schools in Indiana Research Paper - 1

The History and Politics of Charter Schools in Indiana - Research Paper Example Undoubtedly, the numbers of charter schools are increasing rapidly. It has been estimated that there are nearly 4900 charter schools in the United States with an average of 400 charter schools opening on yearly basis (Lake, 2010). On an account, it has been estimated that till 2011, there are total of 36 charter schools that have been authorized in Indiana with 22 schools already functioning while 10 schools were set to start their operations in future. Two schools were shut downed even before opening of their academic operations due to lack of resources while just one school had been shut down officially due to inadequate and unsatisfactory results and governance. These charter schools have increased in number throughout in the state of Indiana with the highest number of charter schools operating in the main city of Indianapolis, where they account for 11 charter schools out of the overall 22 charter schools in the state (Plucker et.al, 2004).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The concept of charter schools was coined in late 1980s. Ever since this concept has come into force, it raised a thought that charter schools would help in increasing the quality of education. The historical movement for charter schools began in 1991. This movement was aimed to achieve a new milestone in offering high-quality education through the establishment of wee-defined public schools for both children and their parents (Source: Mayor Sponsored Charter Schools: 2010). Charter school funding is complex to understand and has gone through many phases of development. Many political camps have appreciated the implementation of charter schools as it would influence the process for improving the standard of education all around the United States (Butryomowicyz, 2011). The state of Indiana has played a key role in the national charter school movement. This law was signed in May 2001 by the Governor

Young Goodman Brown (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Young Goodman Brown (Nathaniel Hawthorne) - Essay Example The darkness here has been used to symbolize confusion and loneliness of a Godless life. Brown meets the Devil who accompanies him to meet up Goody Cloyse. Afterwards the devil disappears and Brown attempts to pray (Hawthorne 23). He is however, distracted by a cloud containing the voices on several sinners. At this point, the author attempted to communicate the danger of the world blinding a person’s eye to heaven. Brown runs through the woods. Here, the author communicated that finding the path of righteousness is challenging when one leaves it first since the sin’s woods are covered with confusion and darkness. The story ends in Brown getting back to the village a fearful and bitter man who suspects the religious wholesomeness of those near him (Hawthorne 48). Critics have argued that this story clues Hawthorne’s own history. Similar to Brown, he was brought up in a Salem, Massachusetts. The two women in the story, Cory and Goodies Cloyse execute witchcraft during Hawthorne’s time. It is also arguable that the moral and mental beliefs of Hawthorne have been revealed throughout this story. He felt that all humans share a fellowship of fault. He believed that if it was possible to escape guilt, it was impossible with brotherhood

Philosophy, the second Topic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Philosophy, the second Topic - Essay Example Aristotle’s viewpoints also underscore Plato’s assertion in that philosophy has a purpose of practicality attached to it. Gaining knowledge for its own sake does not restrict the projection of the acquired knowledge in any way. Rather, practical philosophy can be attributed to numerous situations that are intrinsically separated from merely conjectural inquiries made for the sake of flaunting one’s pedantic affectations. The rational components of practical philosophy have, however, been questioned by modern scientific innovations that strive to theorize every phenomenon. This is the main point of debate in this paper. What is the purpose of philosophy in real life? Does philosophy have any bearing on human life, individual or collective? The paper shall examine the arguments propounded by five seminal thinkers from the world of philosophy: Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. The existential quandaries of modern men have been addressed in-depth by the French thinker Jean-Paul Sartre. Commenting on philosophy, he claims that philosophy as an abstraction of human perception is only a vague concept which does not yield any ethical or realistic principles. The basis of his argument involves the interdependency of existentialism and Marxism for the sake of comprehending reality and its evolution from the past. This is an interesting premise because Marxist philosophy is different from existentialist philosophy in terms of explaining idealism (Sartre and Priest 17). Marx’s investigation is more akin to presenting every individual within a social setup which should be in perfect accord with a totalitarian worldview. Hence, the existential essence of subjective idealism is not the point of philosophical contention for Marx. He argues that betterment of living can be achieved not by the

Childhood Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Childhood - Personal Statement Example The character I developed in those days is to be good to all whatever happens. Never turn your face to others. I could not exactly say who was my inspiration to this. But my parents, my brothers, my friends, my relatives all have a part in this either in a positive way or the other. Its not that we are only inspired by a good person what should be done. The real thing must be from a bad example what not to be done. In that way even during those earlier stages of my life, when someone behaves rudely to me I know how it hurts me. So I used to think, if I behaved in the same way to someone else, he too will feel the same, will be hurt in the same way as I was hurt. So I stopped being harsh and started being good to all. I would say this quality of mine has carried me all through the life till now and it will in future too. I have had many experiences in my life in which the people I trusted the most have betrayed me, have outdone me. But even in that stage I never said a word harsh to them. Instead I still felt them close to me, wished for their betterment. Many of my friends said am a fool to be still being good to the ones who are hurting me and they are taking advantage over me. But I believed this would change them and it did indeed. They realized their mistakes and I believe never again would they be against me. I believe that being good to those who hurt us is the best way to respond.

Impact of culture on globalization strategies Essay - 1

Impact of culture on globalization strategies - Essay Example Accordingly, Manrodt & Vitasek (2004, 3) averred that â€Å"the literature is clear that global and transnational firms can benefit from a coordinated and integrated management of their key processes.† The complexity of managing global processes on a wider scale is eminent taking into account obstacles including â€Å"language, customs, current standards, education levels, and government regulations. Increased competition, demanding customers, and constantly changing business environments have forced management to seek radically different ways for their companies to succeed in the marketplace.† (Manrodt & Vitasek, 2004, 3) The authors opted to utilize two methods in to achieve their objective. The first method is the use of comprehensive literature on the subject of global process standardization. The second method comprised of an in-depth case study of an actual organization, the Modus Media International, Inc. (Modus) identified as a â€Å"leader linking metrics from strategy to the plant level across its 23 manufacturing/distribution facilities.† (Manrodt & Vitasek, 2004, 4) The study that was conducted interviewed senior management to line managers using structured standardized questions on Modus’s process management standardization practices. Manrodt & Vitasek formulated a framework for standardizing global processes enumerating six critical steps, to wit: articulate a strategy; adopt a process review of logistics; identification of key segments, processes and process attributes; determination of impact to customers; selection of improvement of key segments; and identification and training of the global segment owner. A background on the company and the case was initially provided. A supply chain conditioning maturity profile was designed to indicate each of the processes which had several attributes that helped employees determine their level