Organizational Behavior and the Decision Making Process

Decision making is a form of deductive reasoning; it is a strategic study that identifies alternatives that would be feasible for many organizations to proceed with general business practices. The main objective of a decision maker is to identify the factors that have the highest probability of effectiveness. In this document, we will identify the decision making process as well as the approaches to decision making which include an intuitive and systematic approach. Decision making is a skill that utilizes qualitative and quantitative measures of problem solving which is key to an organizations overall success. As we delve into this journey of decision making we will discover how statistics is a fundamental attribute in all forms of managerial decision making.

The decision making process includes:

1. "Define and clarify the issue - does it warrant action? If so, how? Is the matter urgent, important or both." (Chapman, 2010)

2. Determine requirements- "In mathematical form, these requirements are
the constraints describing the set of the feasible (admissible) solutions of the decision problem. It is very important that even if subjective or judgmental evaluations may occur in the following steps, the requirements must be stated in exact quantitative form, i.e. for any possible solution it has to be decided unambiguously whether it meets the requirements or not." (Fulop, 2010).

3. Establish goals-a decision maker must ascertain the future of the organization.

4. Identify alternatives by weighing the pros and cons of the decision.

5. Define criteria-"which will discriminate among alternatives, must be based on the goals. It is necessary to define discriminating criteria as objective measures of the goals to measure how well each alternative achieves the goals.. Since the goals will be represented in the form of criteria, every goal must generate at least one criterion but complex goals may be represented only by several criteria," (Fulop, 2010).

6 "Explain your decision to those involved and affected, and follow up to ensure proper and effective implementation." (Chapman, 2010).

7 Select a decision making tool

8 Evaluate alternatives against criteria

9 Validate solutions against problems statements

Decision making is a recursive process, in which case decisions are made by weighing the pros and cons of alternative decisions or is the process of "moving back and forth between the choice of criteria (the characteristics we want our choices to meet) and the identification of alternatives (the possibilities we can choose from among). The alternatives available influence the criteria we apply to them, and similarly the criteria we establish influence the alternatives we will consider." (Harris, 2009).

The two approaches of decision making that will be identified in this document will include the following:

- The mathematical/statistical/intuitive approach-this method often relies on the best alternatives in order to make the best decisions. This method is a comprehensive study revolved around a mathematical infrastructure which embodies deductive reasoning and/or critical thinking processes utilizing the scientific method.

- Problem solving/theoretical/Systematic approach-the systematic approach begins with "a problem and a need for information (4). The need will drive the managers' search for and gathering of information (7) that allows them to problem solve, define or redefine the problem (9). The cooperation (8) of individuals within the business/information environment plays a role in the search, access to, and gathering of needed information. This problem-solving activity and the acquired information will interact with the individual manager's own experience, intuition, and judgment (14). The outcome is a set of alternatives (15) from which the manager selects to make a decision (16)."(Mackenzie, 2010).