Borgs in the Org? Organizational Decision Making and Technology

Data warehousing and the development of the World Wide Web both augment information gathering (search) processes in individual decision making by increasing the availability of required information. Imagine, for example, that one wanted to buy new golf clubs. Thirty years ago, the cost of information gathering would likely have limited an individual\u27s search process to geographically proximal vendors and the golf clubs they stocked. Today, a prospective purchaser can log onto the World Wide Web to find out what types of golf clubs are available anywhere; consult databases, chat rooms, and bulletin boards (e.g., epinions.com) to gather product information and user opinions; and compare prices across vendors around the world

Inflexibility in organizational decision-making

The main objective of this investigation is to validate a measurement model that identifies the dimensions of inflexibility in organizational decision-making. For this purpose a Confirmatory Factor Analysis was conducted to assess how well the measured variables represent the constructs, which according to several authors of the literature, have been identified as limitations to organizational decision-making. In this study they were classified in three dimensions: limitations on Strategic Management, limitations on Human Resource Management and limitations on Financial Management. The analysis is based on data collected from 229 Mexican companies. The results show that the proposed model is a good measure of inflexibility in decision-making of these organizations. In addition, it was identified that the variable that best predicts the limitations in strategic management is the lack of clear objectives. Furthermore, it was found that the strongest predictor of limitations on human resources management is the presence of conflicts between employees; and regarding limitations on financial management, the best predictor is the falling profits of the organization. It is expected that this model will help organizations to identify and eliminate these limitations that constraint the organizational decision-making, facilitating their capability to adapt to the changing environment

Including Social Service Clients in the Organizational Decision Making Process

Empowerment of clients is a goal of many social service organizations and yet a concept that is hard to define and often complicated to implement. This professional project looks at the importance and practice of empowering parents in a teenage pregnancy prevention program through a case study. A survey of parents supported the idea of empowering practices leading to parents becoming partners with the organization in the education of the community. In a qualitative study, this researcher offers the practice of taking empowerment a step further in asking participants of the program to take part in the decision of what should be next for the program

A humanistic approach to organizations and to organizational decision-making

This paper attempts to take steps towards the formulation of a more human approach to the theory of the firm than the conventional economics-based models. Unbounded rationality, self-interest and the absence of learning are shown to be crucial assumptions of conventional economic theory. Then, the essential assumptions of an alternative approach are put forward and discussed. Next, I present an alternative view of organizations, which has its foundations in the concepts of mission, distinctive competence, identification and unity. Finally, the implications of such an approach for management decision-making are shown, emphasizing that three criteria have to be considered in any non-trivial decision in an organizational context.theory of the firm; bounded rationality; self-interest; distinctive competence; mission; identification;

Mobile Business Intelligence Acceptance Model for Organisational Decision Making

Mobile Business Intelligence (BI) is the ability to access BI-related data such as key performance indicators (KPIs), business metric and dashboard through mobile device. Mobile BI addresses the use-case of remote or mobile workers that need on-demand access to business-critical data. User acceptance on mobile BI is an essential in order to identify which factors influence the user acceptance of mobile BI application. Research on mobile BI acceptance model on organizational decision-making is limited due to the novelty of mobile BI as newly emerged innovation. In order to answer gap of the adoption of mobile BI in organizational decision-making, this paper reviews the existing works on mobile BI Acceptance Model for organizational decision-making. Two user acceptance models which are Technology Acceptance Model and Technology Acceptance Model for Mobile Services will be review. Realizing the essential of strategic organizational decision-making in determining success of organizations, the potential of mobile BI in decision-making need to be explore. Since mobile BI still in its infancy, there is a need to study user acceptance and usage behavior on mobile BI in organizational decision-making. There is still opportunity for further investigate the impact of mobile BI on organizational decision-making

Mental Frames and Organizational Decision-making: Facing the Challenges of Change

Adjusting to the strategic, business and economic changes requires efficient decision-making procedures which can in turn be highly affected by the underlying mental frames that the leaders of the organization hold. This article examines the impact of these mental frames on decision-making with respect to a specific attribute of a decision-making process: the belief that a CEO of a co-operative holds regarding member commitment. The analysis develops a simple theoretical model that shows how the co-op CEO’s obsolete mental frame creates distortions on decision making that can have negative effects on co-op’s strategic decisions and its market share. The starting point of the analysis is the case of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool (SWP) – a Canadian grain handling, agri-food processing and marketing company that had little success in adapting to the changing economic environment of the Canadian agriculture.Industrial Organization,

Partner or Guardian? HR’s Challenge in Balancing Value and Values

[Excerpt] Is HR at a crossroad? A number of signs seem to be pointing that way. Increasingly HR executives are faced with a critical decision: Will they continue on their journey to be business leaders, , with full sway and equal influence in organizational decision making, or will they take the short-cut by sacrificing professional ethics and values for a seat at the table. This challenge is exemplified by the story of Delta Airlines

Insights from quantum cognitive models for organizational decision making

Organizational decision making is often explored with theories from the heuristics and biases research program, which have demonstrated great value as descriptions of how people in organizations make decisions. Nevertheless, rational analysis and classical probability theory are still seen by many as the best accounts of how decisions should be made and classical probability theory is the preferred framework for cognitive modelling for many researchers. The focus of this work is quantum probability theory, an alternative probabilistic framework. Results in decision making, which appear paradoxical from a perspective of classical probability theory, may make perfect sense if one adopts quantum probability theory. We review some cognitive models of decision making based on quantum probability theory. Each of these models is based on a challenge to prescription from classical probability theory. The transition from labeling a particular behavior as irrational, by classical probability standards, to (potentially) rational (or, at any rate, not fallacious), raises interesting possibilities, including that of characterizing certain heuristics in formal, probabilistic terms

Unspoken Factors in Organizational Decision-Making: A Case Study

The sample consisted of 22 participants including C-level, senior executives, and administrative support personnel for a large nonprofit organization in the southeastern United States. The results of the study indicate that unspoken factors exist within organizations, however it is difficult to surface these unspoken factors within a group. This appears to influence the amount of information that it shared in the decision-making process. The present study is a first attempt to operationalize the hidden dimensions proposed by the Covert Process Model (Marshak & Katz, 2001). The research employs an inductive approach based on the assumption that some level of hidden processes occurs during organizational meetings. The researcher observed two of the organization’s executive level meetings, then interviewed select participants

Employee Contributions to Organizational Decision-Making Processes and Outcomes

An organizations’ ability to make the right decision at the right time is critical to its success (Wernz & Deshmukh, 2010; Roberto, 2013). Given the importance of effective decision-making to organizations, it is not surprising there is significant research on this topic. However, most analysis and research focuses on the role leaders play in organizational decision-making. I believe a holistic approach to decision-making needs to take into account employees’ contributions to decision-making processes and outcomes. The purpose of my study is to add to the body of literature on organizational decision-making, and provide both leaders and employees with information on which employee behaviors support effective decision-making processes and outcomes. To answer these questions I used a mixed methods approach conducted in two phases. I first used leader interviews to identify which employee behaviors are perceived as most effective in supporting their decision-making. Then, by using those responses to develop a questionnaire, I surveyed both leaders and employees to determine if the presence of these behaviors in an organization predicts a high level of decision-making effectiveness as reported by survey respondents. The results of my research indicate a strong correlation between the presence of certain employee behaviors and decision-making effectiveness. In addition, I was able to theorize which of these behaviors have the greatest impact on decision-making effectiveness. These results have important implications for organizations, leaders and employees looking for ways to improve decision-making processes and outcomes. 7 In today’s complex fast-paced business environment, organizations need the ability to effectively respond to threats and take advantage of opportunities. This can be accomplished by making high quality decisions quickly and efficiently, and then implementing accordingly. Effective decision-making is well established as a key competency of successful organizational leadership (Ewing, 1964; Norton, Gustafson, & Foster, 1977; Tjosvold, Wedley and Field, 1986 as cited in Caruth, Caruth, & Humphreys, 2009). Decisions must be made on every facet of a business, including strategy definition, capital allocation, and organizational structure. As organizations become larger, more complex and more challenging to control, effective decisionmaking becomes even more important (Wernz & Deshmukh, 2010). An organization’s ability to make the right decision at the right time is critical to its success (Wernz & Deshmukh, 2010; Roberto, 2013). In my role as planning and delivery leader in a large financial services company, I was often involved in making and supporting organizational decisions. My organization recognized the importance of making high quality decisions. They invested in a company-wide decisionmaking model. This model identifies the different roles in the decision-making process; for example, the role of the individual(s) accountable for informing, recommending, and agreeing with the decision. Both leaders and employees are integral in this model. In my experience, this model was familiar to most employees but used inconsistently. In addition, employee survey results and my daily interactions with employees reflected their dissatisfaction with decisionmaking effectiveness. I saw employees struggle to understand, influence and support key decisions. Employees saw ineffective decision-making as the leaders’ problem. My experience and intuition tell me employees have an important role in decision-making, and their participation increases organizational decision process and outcome quality. I would like to see 8 organizations, leaders and employees increase their recognition of the important role employees play in effective decision-making, and for both leaders and employees to have more tools and training available to support employees’ contributions to effective decision-making. I believe this will improve organizations’ success and effectiveness