Decision Making in Management PDF

UNIVERSITY OF BELIZE FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT & SOCIAL SCIENCE COURSE: Decision Making in Management (MGMT 4023) LECTURER: Dr. Romaldo Isaac Lewis (DBA) Chapter No.1; Effective Management Decision Making: OBJECTIVES After studying this chapter, you should be able to understand: 1. Understand what are e...

UNIVERSITY OF BELIZE FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT & SOCIAL SCIENCE COURSE: Decision Making in Management (MGMT 4023) LECTURER: Dr. Romaldo Isaac Lewis (DBA) Chapter No.1; Effective Management Decision Making: OBJECTIVES After studying this chapter, you should be able to understand: 1. Understand what are effective management decision making 2. What is Duality of Decision Making? 3. Types of Business and Management Decisions 4. Know who is involved in Decision Making? - The Decision Body 1.1) Introduction? Management decision making is a seemingly simple title for a text or for study as a Business Management student or manager. After all, we all make decisions every moment of our lives, from the trivial topics of deciding ‘what shall we eat tonight?’ to more difficult decisions about ‘where shall I study for my degree?’. We tend to believe we make such decisions in an entirely rational and logical manner and after considering the varying advantages and disadvantages of those outcomes. Indeed, selecting options from a range of actions is at the heart of decision making and is probably one of the defining characteristics of being an effective manager. However, if you start to question the motivations and reasons for decisions taken, you begin to realise that trying to understand why a given action was chosen over another and whether it was a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ decision is actually a complex and difficult task. This questioning highlights the inherent difficulties in identifying clear and agreed criteria against which an ‘effective’ decision can be judged independently. If you are a student, think about the decision you made about in choosing which university or college to study with. If you are a manager, then consider your chosen career path - what criteria did you use to make this decision? Why did you choose these criteria? Did you evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of all those criteria and their impact upon all possible choices of universities (or careers)? How important was the influence of your family or friends? Did you question any assumptions about those universities (or career paths)? And so forth… You soon realise that despite the fact decisions are made by individuals and groups regularly, understanding them and anticipating them is not an easy task. This text aims to give you an understanding of the reflective skills necessary for effective decision making, and also an insight into how to better manage those with whom you work and live, in both a qualitative context (trying better to understand people) and a quantitative context (trying better to work with data and numbers). It is based upon several years of devising and delivering a Decision Making course for final year students in varying Business Degree programmes and in trying to grapple with the inherent duality of the topic for students. 1 1.2) The Duality of Decision Making? It should have become clear from reading the first page that the topic of decision making has two distinctive foundations – a quantitative and a qualitative focus. This is indicative of a relatively young management discipline and one that has deep roots in operations research and statistical analyses (Harrison, 1999). This is also reflected in the range of texts written on this topic but which generally are either of a quantitative or qualitative nature. A few authors have tried to integrate and popularise the two foundations, but these materials are not easily accessible. Some of the better known teaching texts on this integration are noted as: One of the ways in which management decision making has been analysed, is to consider process concerns. For example, Harrison (1999) and Olson (2001) outline several perspectives on management decision making which reflect different priorities within the processes of making decisions (as an individual judgement). These are:  An integrative perspective (or rational normative) which argues that an effective decision is constructed from the successful performance of each step in the overall process (a which is used to frame qualitative discussions in this text)  An interdisciplinary perspective which looks to both behavioural and quantitative disciplines to understand and explain decision making (this is also a focus in this text)  An interlocking perspective which recognises that the engagement of one perspective to view decision making (such as a cognitive focus where individuals have bounded rationality (see Chapter 5)) necessarily limits the use of other perspectives (such as quantitative methods)  An interrelational perspective (or a cause-effect view), where decisions taken are interrelated across organisational events, in pursuit of an organisational goal. As an example, we note shortly in Box 1.2, the interrelational decision making of Nokia. If these themes are then grouped into their quantitative and qualitative foci, the following summary figure is generated: 2 Figure 1.2: Volume of titles that focus upon either qualitative or quantitative management decision making Source: Amazon (2011) The qualitative focus in Decision Making then dominates the focus of published text materials, despite the original quantitative roots to the discipline. However, from a systems perspective (see Checkland, 1981: 1990 for example), which seeks to view the holistic nature of a problem (the problem domain), we know the quantitative focus is also important and should not be ignored in the development of management skills in decision making– so that a problem can be fully understood too. Therefore, this text also considers (some of) this breadth to present a fuller picture to the reader. Fuller and Mansour (2003) citing Lane et al (1993) present an overview of this breadth and outline 13 distinctive quantitative decision making methods that have evolved in the operations management and research literature. These are: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11) 12) 13) Decision Analysis* Linear programming models Game Theory models Simulation models* Network optimization models Project management models Inventory models Queuing models* Dynamic programming Integer programme Non-linear programming models* Forecasting models* Markov Decision models* The (*) denotes there is a focus for these methods, in this text. 3 A difficulty for students when faced with these methods, is being easily able to relate them to a business context and to view them as management tools (rather than in the abstract mathematical sense (Fuller & Mansour, 2003)). Certainly this reflects personal experience, having observed this with many students over the years. Part of this difficulty, is that whereas these methods are solution oriented with specific techniques and skills to deploy, rarely are actual business problems so neatly prescribed and packaged, especially in smaller organisations. Effective decision making is also therefore about being able to adapt and reflect upon the process and tools chosen to aid the decision making process. A student or manager who is able to adapt a modelling method to address a management decision, is exhibiting problem solving, judgement and foresight skills. This does of course not necessarily mean that the solution is or will be correct, but demonstrates that the manager is not a slave to a dogmatic use of a given method. Used in this way, these methods may also help improve the clarity of a problem and may also lead to further qualitative analysis prior to an effective decision being reached. Harrison (1999) argues that the scope of decision making begins with the individual (chapter 6), which follows from the preceding discussion too. Individuals can then work together in groups and/or teams, depending upon the context of the organisation and its micro and macro environment. In this text we focus upon both the individual (chapter 6) and the group dynamic of decision making in particular (chapter 7). In the context of the former, we will discuss the inherent bias and limits of individuals involved in decision making, whilst in the latter we discuss how a group dynamic can also strongly influence the independence of both the decision making process and its outcomes. Organisational influences are apparent in both individual and group decision making activities, as they evolve and change in an interdependent fashion with them. As Cohen et al (1972) asserts the convergence of necessary resources, individuals and information to resolve a problem or choose between process outcomes is rarely optimal in organisations - this is described by their Garbage Can model. In this model –typical of organised anarchies - the availability of solutions, their selection and implementation to resolve problems increasingly reflects the vagaries of the availability of resources and their analysis. Complexity and ambiguity increase to an extent that it can result in the breakdown of a guiding and structuring rationality and decisions are taken which can, upon fuller and richer reflection, be seen to be very poor (Langley et al,1995). As an example, Hollinger et al (2007) discuss how the newly appointed CEO of the Alcatel-Lucent group merger, who, through her absence at subsequent important decision making meetings, resulted in actions being agreed which further exasperated the recent merger’s corporate position and shareholder belief in the weak value of that entity. Decisions were not optimal in their corporate context, undermining the strength of the organisation and ultimately of the CEO (see Box 1.1) Box 1.1: Alacatel –Lucent and anarchic decision making(2006-2008) An expected appearance by the newly appointed American CEO of the merged Alcatel-Lucent company – Ms Pat Russo -, was marred by cat calls, whistles and foghorns from angry French employees, upset at job cuts organised by the outgoing CEO at the Alcatel-Lucent corporate meeting in June 2007. The response by the work force towards the CEO, shaped the CEOs subsequent engagement with corporate dialogue and communications within the organisation and especially in employment relationships. This is very much contra to the usual French cultural context of making decisions transparent through dialogue within different levels of the organisation. In addition, whilst approval for difficult job cuts within the organisation was given by Pat, she was also critiqued for not being visible and forceful enough to push the job cuts through and show conviction with her strategic focus for the organisation. 4 Solutions were chosen and implemented to address and deliver upon the corporate merger aims, but arguably without the necessary individuals being involved at the appropriate time. This has negatively then affected confidence in the organisation and the merger. Perhaps more worryingly, the foundation for the merger as a solution to address problems of increasing competitive strength in China and rising to the increased challenges of large European firms such as Ericsson – overlooked other non-addressed technological weaknesses (especially in mobile infrastructure). Anarchic decision making as described by the Garbage Can model is therefore seemingly apparent in the manner of engagement of the CEO, the omissions in the analysis of the competitive positioning of the merged organisation and that internal departments in the merged organisation were also found to be bidding against themselves in the same contract tenders. Furthermore, part of the difficulty in making and communicating decisions within the merged organisation, has been that the senior management team and their decision context, has had to reflect an apparent ‘merger of equals’ despite the reported observations, that Alcatel defacto acquired Lucent. Both Pat Russo and the (non-executive Chairman) Serge Tchuruk subsequently resigned in late 2008, following further profit warnings and a disappointing corporate performance of a 60% fall in the value of Alcatel-Lucent stock in 2008. Sources: Adapted from Aston (2008): Hollinger et al (2007) 1.3) Types of Business and Management Decisions Organisational decisions can have different characteristics, which shape how they can be understood and resolved by managers. Structured Decisions – are decisions where the aim is clear (i.e. the purpose of the decision to be taken is unambiguous, easily defined and understood). Structured decisions therefore follow a series of logical and rational steps in a clear progressive order. This is often labelled as a normative method of decision making (Jennings & Wattam, 1998) or a Rational model (or RAT model) (Lee & Cummins, 2004). For example, an organisation decides it needs to know more about Company X. To compile this information, it may decide to consult newspaper archives, or conduct market research. In other words, it deploys known and tested methods to progress the problem so that the organisational decision makers are then able to make a decision regarding preferred outcomes. Equally, as a manager of an organisation, there might be a need to schedule the work rota for the next 6 months to ensure sufficient resources are allocated to different jobs. In such cases, information will be available, on hand and manageable. These are structured decisions where the aim is clear and there are varying and well understood methods open to address the aim. Unstructured Decisions – by contrast, for individuals and organisations, are decisions which are unclear, ambiguous and poorly understood by participants. It may be very difficult to compare outcomes and their relevant benefit for individuals, the value of required information to resolve the problem or opportunity, may be difficult to assess. For example, Nintendo would have faced many uncertainties in their launch of the Wii console, which would have included high levels of ambiguity about the key market focus and its social impact. We know latterly of course, that this was in fact significant for its success as it broadened the sociodemographic base of gamers significantly. 5 Programmable decisions are types of structured decisions which follow clear, delineated steps and procedures. They can be repetitive and routine (Harrison, 1999). Similarly, a non –programmed decision for an organisation can be said to occur where there are no existing procedures or practices in place to resolve the problem or address the opportunity. Sufficient reoccurrence of non-programmed decision outcomes, can of course then generate a programmed organisational response to given situational stimuli. For example, when Honda first entered the US marketplace in 1958 with their 4 motorcycle types (which differed primarily by engine size), the different and changed uses of their vehicles by American buyers – who had long open roads which could be travelled at high speed, was in marked contrast to the congested Japanese and Far Eastern cities and road network. This created a problem with no programmed response by the organisation. The larger engine motorcycles had been the focus of sales attention by Honda (given the presumed market for this type of vehicle) but their extensive and unpredicted use in the American marketplace resulted in unforeseen mechanical failings. With no existing policies or practices to address the problem, new practices were developed (in this situation – shipping the faulty engines back to Japan and using the smaller engine motorbikes) (Pascale, 1988). Latterly, the smaller engined motorbikes proved to be a great unexpected commercial success and laid the foundation for Honda’s subsequent market dominance. Market evaluation and product development emerged as stronger factors of the decision to enter new markets. Decisions also occur at different levels in an organisation – and those decisions can also be of different types. For example, strategic decisions are generally concerned with the most appropriate use of organisational resources for a given preferred competitive goal. They usually have some form of structure (i.e. the organisation may know what resources it has or can access through an internal resource audit), but also will carry uncertainties (such as the assumptions about how the buying behaviour of the customer might develop over time). Changes in these assumptions might then change what is produced, where, at what price and for whom, for the organisation. Tactical decisions are the actions which follow (and are required to be achieved) the strategic decision. We might say that whilst a strategic decision determines what the organisational purpose is or could be, the tactical decisions follow in determining what needs to be done to achieve this goal. For example, an organisation might decide strategically, that entering the Indian market with an existing product is appropriate, whilst the tactical decision might be to decide between an export focused approach or local (in country) manufacture by building a new factory or finding local production partners. Operational decisions finally, are short term and responsive actions. For example we could consider the hierarchy of decision making here as (and which continues from the preceding discussion):  Strategic Decision (or a Corporate Strategy) – such as for example, the decision to enter the Indian market to support organisational sales growth of 5% per annum  Tactical Decision (or a Business Strategy) – such as for example, to decide between export led market expansion or locally producing the product  Operational Decision – such as for example the decision to hire more expatriates (or local staff) to deliver and manage either the export or local production operations. Box 1.2 presents a summary of recent strategic decision making taken at Nokia to illustrate this hierarchy of organisational decision making and levels of management decision making. 6 Box 1.2: Taking big decisions at Nokia Stephen Elop, who joined Nokia as President and CEO in September 2010 from the senior staff of Microsoft is faced with a significant amount of uncertainty and ambiguity in determining the future strategy of the company. With a rapidly declining market share in developed markets (where Google’s Android and Apples iPhone have heralded the invasion of SmartPhones) and a weakening competitive position in emerging markets (such as India), the decisions he is taking are significant for the survival of the organisation. In February 2011, he issued his famous ‘burning platform’ memo and canvassed 3 questions to all Nokia employees: The ‘burning memo’ document presented a clear and simple analogy for Nokia employees: “There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform’s edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters. “As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a ‘burning platform’, and he needed to make a choice. “He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times - his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a ‘burning platform’ caused a radical change in his behaviour. “ (Hill, 2011:14). The three questions posed to Nokia employees were: “What do you think I need to change?” “What do you think I need not or should not change?” “What are you afraid I’m going to miss?” Mr.Elop subsequently announced a strategic decision to create a joint venture with Microsoft and adopt their Windows operating system to power their new smartphones.. It offers tactically both leveraged branding for Microsoft and Nokia in both developed and emerging markets but moreover still requires Nokia to make the operational decision of maintaining their support for their inhouse Symbian and Meego platforms, to finance the transition of the company. A large challenge given the extensive history of organic and in house technological development and the corporate culture this has developed. You might wish to consider these questions for discussion and further research: 1)What were the decisions taken by Stephen and what were the defining features of those decisions? 2) What was the process Stephen used and why, to take those decisions? 7 3)What are the risks associated with these decisions? 1.4) Who is involved in Decision Making? - The Decision Body It is a common belief, when trying to understand decision making, to view it as equivalent to problem solving (Harrison, 1999). However, it must be remembered that decisions are often taken without a clear problem being resolved or driving the decision making process. For example, whilst Stephen Olap (see Box 1.2) may have been trying to solve a strategic problem with Nokia (a declining competitive market share in that instance), the mechanisms and actions (tactical and operational decisions) that resulted from that decision, were not necessarily being driven by that problem (as other choices could have been made). Clearly decision making and problem solving are related, but they are not interchangeable terms. Decision making occurs when a judgement must be made between the merits and demerits of different choice processes, whereas problem solving generates the choice processes in the first place (Harrison, 1999). In presenting an overview of decision making, we can also then begin to consider the antecedent environmental factors that shape decision making. Teale et al (2003) propose that decisions, of the type discussed, are made by a decision body in organisations. These are the individuals, collective groupings and other stakeholder entities that actively shape the decision making process. Some care should be taken regarding who or what may constitute a valid stakeholder for an organisational decision. Whilst Freeman (1984) originally identified organisational stakeholders as all those who are affected by an organisational decision, this latterly has come to be viewed as too large to be a useful (or a managerially practical) definition. Mitchell et al (1997) and Escoubes (1999) offer more focused insights on who might be a stakeholder and therefore constitute an active member of the organisational decision body. We can start this deepening of our analysis by recognising that decision making implicitly exhibits the power to select from solutions, often regardless of other actor preferences and influences. Mitchell et al (1997) then propose that stakeholders can be identified through three interdependent features of influence: 1) Their level of power and authority – for example how easy is it for a stakeholder to influence a firm’s decisions (consider the different likely power relations for a firm when working with a single customer vs a regulatory authority or as reported by Pickard (2007) the conflict between resource constrained local authorities and the legal team of property developers who are by comparison much better resourced and able to exert significant influence upon the outcomes of for example, planning applications). 2) Their level of legitimacy – what is the social and moral authority of the stakeholder when using its influence to shape a firm’s decisions (consider a pressure group lobbying on behalf of homeless people vs Rotarian society lobbying on behalf of improved parking spaces or as reported by Wolf (2004) on geopolitical changes in the legitimacy of decision making and the controversial changes to US foreign policy especially under the Presidency of George Bush (Jnr), viewed by some observers as resulting in a decline in the legitimacy of the US to effect global geopolitical changes. Its decline heralds from a 8 perceived weakening of international law, a decline in the acceptance of consensual decision making and moderation and its weakened position with regards to an ideology of preserving the peace). 3) Their level of urgency – what is the stakeholder’s level of immediate implication in the firm’s activities (consider a local archaeology groups’ protests about developing an historic property vs developer’s desires for access to the land or as reported by Bing & Dyer (2008), the changing economic face of China and growing wealth is helping both official and unofficial local representation groups to challenge the development of nuclear power and energy stations). A stakeholder which combines all three attributes can be said to have a high level of saliency for the decision body. However, it is important to also note the dynamic nature of the decision body. It is not a static or passive collection of individual(s) and/ or group(s), but a body that changes and evolves through new knowledge of the problem or decision to be made, or through the problem itself changing. Escoubes (1999) succinctly reflects on this by also recommending that appropriate stakeholders for the decision body can be identified by: z 1) A regular analysis of who stakeholders are and might be (for example monitoring market trends, new technologies and their development, changes to the regulatory environment of the organisation – all of which might be typical of the triggers which change the relevance of a given stakeholder through the Mitchell et al (1997) criteria discussed earlier). 2) Selecting those stakeholders critical to the organisation and problem at hand – which stakeholders evidence a high level of saliency for the decision body. 3) Consulting with these stakeholders – to identify their needs/wants 4) Assessing how compatible they are with the firm’s preferred decision outcome 5) Establishing appropriate systems to meet those needs which fit with organisational and stakeholder needs. This focus however only includes the human input. We cannot neglect the non-human input in the decision body, which may constitute the relevant data, information and knowledge. The decision context is therefore the environment within which the decision body acts. It captures the situational context, pressures and expectancies that have shaped the decision body and the processes and forms of outcomes. To illustrate the 9 competing tension and issues in management decision making with multiple stakeholders, Activity 1.1 applies a simple version of the Mitchell & Escoubes framework: Activity 1.1: Consider the following scenario: An international firm is considering the most acceptable method of introducing, building and managing a new windfarm site, on an elevated area, to the north of your town and which would be visible from most parts of that town. Amongst the range of possible stakeholder’s which would constitute the decision body, you have identified the following as potentially important in the decision making process associated with the windfarm.  Stakeholder 1: Local residents pressure group  Stakeholder 2: Local Authority The decision context includes the following situational factors that might be deemed appropriate evaluative features: Nature = The alignment of the windfarm to the purpose of the organisational stakeholder and its core interests in this firm’s decision Identity = The extent to which the stakeholder is associated with the culture and context of the area in which the decision is to be taken (spatially) Scope = The extent of the breadth of interests the stakeholder has in such firm decisions Now – working with a partner, consider the cross impact of each situational factor with the power, urgency and legitimacy of each stakeholder as you perceive them. Score each criteria against each feature to determine the most important stakeholder in this decision making activity. Use the following scale to help your decision making:  0-4 – no clear influence on the decision making of the firm  5 – influence (but neither strong / nor weak)  6-10 - a clear influence on the decision making of the firm 10 Stakeholder criteria Stakeholder feature NATURE IDENTITY SCOPE POWER LEGITIMACY URGENCY Totals Q1) What does this activity and your findings tell you about management decision making here? Q2) What features and factors would add a temporal focus to the decision making here? Models of Decision Making The normative model of decision making (also described as the rational model (RAT)), offers a starting point to try to understand the process of decision making through the decision body and context. It remains an important foundation for a variety of social science and humanistic disciplines including leadership studies (Vroom & Yetton, 1973), economics and rational choice theory (Levi, 1997: Scott, 2000). This model assumes that all relevant and pertinent information is available to the decision body in a supportive (and unconstrained context), to allow optimal decisions to be taken, through a consideration of all potential outcomes (which themselves can be known and understood in advance) (Lee and Cummins, 2004). In the case of economics for example, this may be a comparative cost –benefit analysis. Key stages in this approach might then be described as: 1) Define the problem (what is it that needs to be determined?) 2) Determine the evaluative criteria (efficiency? efficacy? morality?) 3) Identify all possible solutions (the range of actions which result in the achievement of the problem aim) 4) Judge the achievement of the outcomes of these solutions against preferred criteria and problem aim (which solution works best by the relevant criteria) 5) Choose the optimal solution Figure 1.4: Key RAT elements of decision making 11 Such models can though be as simple as the testing of outcomes against a preferred goal (i.e. consider again the question of which travel option to take to get to the University or to work, which ensures you are able to be in class before class starts) (Baron, 2004) or can be involved with multiple evaluative criteria being used. As Baron (2004) further notes decisions are taken to achieve preferred goals according to decision body values. In some cases, they may also be subservient to other decisions taken – and in those cases we can focus upon decision analysis and probability outcomes (see Chapter 3). We can also consider the act of ‘non decision making’ that is often exhibited by individuals and organisations, as part of this text of decision making. Non Decision making as defined by Lukes (1974) refers to the control of the agenda for discussion regarding an issue or problem. It is a form of power and decision making influence that denies discussion to participants who are unaware of their decision making constraints. Whilst appealing as a model of decision making which articulates clearly delineated stages and direction, the RAT model does raises significant concerns - particularly regarding the nature of rationality for individuals. There is the assumption that there is a single best outcome, that the decision body is able to make a decision and select that optimal outcome when in practice, the availability of necessary information and understanding of outcomes is very difficult to gather and/ or determine. A further assumption is that the decision body possess the necessary judgemental and interpretative skills to be able to analyse and use available data. Ahmed & Shepherd (2010) give the illustration that creative managers, who are able to generate novel solutions to problems, do so through a combination of situational pressures (the problem to be addressed), experience and skills. Therefore, the rational model seems to be an inadequate explanation of how the decision body can take decisions because of their varying contexts and individual interpretations. Before considering the complementary discussion on non-normative / non rational models further – it is helpful to illustrate the differences between alternative decision bodies through an example. Pirsig (1974) wrote an influential and well known (novel) text entitled ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance’, which gives an account of the author and his dual philosopher identity’s cognitive journey across Northern America. Amongst many issues discussed, the author identifies different forms of rationality in individuals (in this context between travelling companions on the cross country journey (John and the author)). Consider the two quotes below: 1) “This old engine has a nickels-and-dimes sound to it. As if there were a lot of loose change flying around inside it. Sounds awful, but it’s just normal valve clatter. Once you get used to the sound and learn to expect it, you automatically hear any difference. If you don’t hear any, that’s good. I tried to get John interested in that sound once, but it was hopeless. All he heard was noise and all he saw was the machine and me with greasy tools in my hands, nothing else. That didn’t work. He didn’t really see what was going on and was not interested to find out. He isn’t so interested in what things mean as in what they are.” (Pirsig, 1974: 59) 12 2) “When he brought his motorcycle over I got my wrenches out but noticed that no amount of tightening would stop the slippage [of the handlebars], because the ends of the collars were pinched shut. “You’re going to have to shim those out” I said “What’s a shim?” 3) “It’s a flat thin strip of metal. You just slip it around the handlebar under the collar and it will open the collar up, so it can be tightened again” “Oh” he said. He was getting interested. ” Good. Where do you buy them?” “I’ve got come right here”, I said gleefully, holding up a can of beer in my hand. He didn’t understand for a moment. Then he said,” What, the can?” But to my surprise, he didn’t see the cleverness of this at all. In fact, he got haughty about the whole thing” (Pirsig, 1974: 60) In both quotations, two forms of rationality, or how individuals perceive the values of their environment differently are presented. Pirsig himself described these as classic and romantic views of rationality – where the classic view sees the world (and problems therein) mechanistically whereas the romantic view sees the world (and problems therein) aesthetically. Reconciling such divergent forms of rationality therefore is an aim of understanding decision making. The RAT model is limited and focused upon one form of rationality, whereas its opposite on the decision making spectrum, focuses upon for example human values, emotions and bias (see for example heuristics) (Lee and Cummins, 2004: Tversky and Kahneman, 1974:81 see chapter 6). Heuristic decision making methods are non-optimal, but focus instead upon how decisions are made when specifically the decision body lacks depth and detailed information pertaining to the problem at hand. We will consider these in more detail later in Chapter 6. Perhaps most famously, Herbert Simon in 1951 introduced the concept of bounded rationality. When we consider the rationality of individuals, we can understand this either through a normative approach (the structured and process oriented mode discussed earlier) or we can adopt a descriptive approach (from which latterly has emerged the work on heuristics. Rationality in both cases describes the subsequent behaviour of individuals, in different decision contexts, to achieve their preferred goals. Bounded rationality articulates the view that individuals are limited information processors with constrained abilities and access to information. 13 Decisions are therefore by definition, suboptimal, but also will vary between individuals in the same decision context. As a human (and management) topic, this is of great interest – with for example studies on serial and portfolio entrepreneurs and in what ways are their behaviours different from nascent or non-entrepreneurs (for a detailed exploration see the work of Carland et al, 1997: Westhead & Wright, 1998: McGrath & MacMillan, 2000). An increased focus upon cognitive theories of decision making is also evident in recent management studies (Rogoff et al, 2004: Mitchel et al ,2007). Let’s explore this issue a little bit more with Activity 1.2. Do you think for example that the decision making cognitive processes are different for entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs? Mitchell et al (2002:4) defined entrepreneurial cognitions to be: “the knowledge structures that people use to make assessments, judgments or decisions involving opportunity evaluation and venture creation and growth”. Rogof et al (2004) have explored the extent to which entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs (in their case they focused upon pharmacists in New Jersey) attribute their commercial success (or failure) to factors of their environment (over which they have no control (an actor-observer bias)) or to internal factors of skill and effort (to which they have varying levels of control and failure is therefore externalised (a self-serving attribution bias). They concluded that entrepreneurs were more likely to judge their success as a result of individual efforts and controllable factors on their environment, than non-entrepreneurs – although gender variations and the impact of experience was also a notable factor upon the attribution bias of the entrepreneur. A simplified version of their data collection questionnaire method is given in Activity 1.2 below and some sample answer data from MBA cohorts from Muscat and Singapore has been provided for comparative discussion. Activity 1.2: Entrepreneurial Decision Making The following questions can be answered and scored individually, although it is more interesting and useful to gather collective responses (from your class). As you answer, make a note of your score (per question) so that you can then work out your means for questions which have a self-serving attribution bias and those for an actor-observer bias). IN answering the questions – choose from the range of 1-4 so that: 1=Strongly Agree, 2=Agree, 3=Disagree, 4=Strongly Disagree. 1. Do you feel individual characteristics contribute to business success? 2. Do you feel management issues (e.g. Effective organisation, skills) contribute to business? 3. Do you feel financing issues contribute to business success? 4. Do you feel marketing activities contribute to business success? 5. Do you feel HR issues contribute to business success? 6. Do you feel economic conditions contribute to business success? 14 7. Do you feel competition contributes to business success? 8. Do you feel regulations contribute to business success? 9. Do you feel technology contributes to business success? 10. Do you feel environmental factors contribute to business success? 11.Do you feel individual characteristics impede business success? 12.Do you feel management issues impede business success? 13. Do you feel financing issues impede to business success? 14.Do you feel marketing activities impede business success? 15.Do you feel HR issues impede business success? 16.Do you feel economic conditions impede business success? 17.Do you feel competition impedes business success? 18.Do you feel regulations impede business success? 19.Do you feel technology impedes business success? 20.Do you feel environmental factors impede business success? Determine your means for your answers for the following question combinations: An I(Internal Attribution) to success for questions 1,2,4,5,11,13,14  An E(external Attribution) to success for questions 3,6,7,8,910,12,15,16,17,18,19,20 Compare your mean with the collective means for questions noted and then reflect on them with the data given below. Depending upon the E/NE you will be able to compare your mean with the class mean and the extent to which you could attribute your entrepreneurial success/failures. A low score for I suggests you are more likely to attribute your success to factors over which you have control where as a low E score suggests you are more likely to attribute your success to factors over which you have limited control. Comparative data from two MBA cohorts (25 in each grouping) from Singapore (November 2009) and Muscat (December 2010) –gave the following data, which suggests that Muscat students were slightly more likely to view their environment as having a more significant role in shaping their (potential) entrepreneurial success than Singaporeans. Singapore: (I) mean = 1.94 and (E) mean = 2.081 Muscat:(I) mean = 1.946 and (E) mean = 1.989 We have noted that Ahmed and Shepherd (2010) have also proposed that entrepreneurial creativity requires the confluence of individual skills, sector knowledge and an understanding of a problem and opportunity. The decision context then seems very important for an entrepreneurial decision and actions to be taken. It is also interesting to note from Gillson Shalley (2004) that individuals who are placed in a team situation with the expectation of taking creative decisions, are able to fulfil this expectation more so than if this expectation was not made. 15 So, the decision body, the decision context and purpose are multi-layered concepts which can accentuate different individual and situational factors. The RAT model offers a starting point to begin to understand the processes of decision making but is neither sufficiently holistic for the purposes of this work, nor does it reflect the reality of human decision making. It lacks the breadth of possible modes of decision making that individuals can engage with (Langley et al, 1995). To identify a better starting point – and one which allows for and can integrate more decision making factors, the three phased model can be adopted (see Jennings and Wattam (1998) for example). 1.5)The three phased model In moving beyond the RAT model (see figure 1.4), the three phased model (Simon, 1960 cited by Langley et al 1995: Jennings Wattam, 1998), is comprised of – problem identification (intelligence – identifying issues that require improvement and decisions to be made), solution development (design – inventing, developing and analysing possible courses of action) and solution selection (choice – selecting from the available and presented solutions). Clearly, the latter two parts of this model refer to the choices made by managers – and hence this is the decision activity. The Problem Identification (PI) refers to evaluating the information and knowledge about a problem or opportunity and in doing so seeking to add structure and clarity to the subsequent decision making stages. We also recognise that solution development and solution selection are not going to be the separate cognitive processes they are presented as in the RAT model. It is more practical to recognise that they overlap and can occur as simultaneous processes. Zd ϯ WŚĂƐĞ ,Ğ ŝ ŝĐ ŶĂĐŚŝĐĂů ^Ğ ĞŶŝĂů ĞĐŝŝŽŶ ĞĐŝŝŽŶ DĂŬŝŶŐ DĂŬŝŶŐ Figure 1.5 – Moving beyond RAT 16 In this sense, the phased model rejects any kind of optimally economic outcome (that the best returning decision can be made (in whatever is of value to the decision maker)), but does retain some cognitive structure and order as to how decisions are made and can be evaluated (Langley et al, 1995). Clearly, there are still concerns about to what extent this phased approach is also valid cognitively (for example, where an organisation may lack a clear objective that informs the preferred range of solutions from which to judge and select), but it is a popular way of giving structure to the evaluation of the decision making process. The further to the right on figure 1.5, the greater the focus upon what has been termed procedural rationality (Lee & Cummins, 2004) – in other words, that human decision making becomes one shaped both by cognitive processes (from the 3 phased approach) but also by contextual and situational pressures. Generally, business decisions are assumed to reflect key attributes of the RAT model – that individuals are driven and motivated by self-interest and that systems operate best when they have minimal external direction and control (Olson, 2001). As individual interests often vary and may not converge, governance systems are created (such as establishing budget holders and committees maintaining oversight over some organisational function)- which then add a cost to that organisation. The pursuit and belief in RAT models of decision making therefore incurs a competitive cost for organisations unless of course an alternative and localised form of rationality can emerge in and between organisations (such as ‘strong’ trust) which negates the need for overt governance control procedures and policies (Barney, 2007). Critiques of the RAT model are commonly known but feature the following observations (see Olson(2001) for a fuller discussion): Not all decision variables can be controlled by the manager  That manager’s decision making preferences for chosen solutions cannot be understood by examining those solutions alone  Manager’s welfare and hence their choices made cannot be divorced from the welfare of others (see figure 1.5 and noting that taking decisions that are too self-interested (at the expense of others) will constrain future selection options as the ‘others’ seek to then constrain the manager and their decision making options).  Individuals and managers can and do exhibit altruism  The value attached to choosing between preferred outcomes and actions is not consistent between different managers and individuals.  Organisations do not function rationally as decisions are not economically optimized.  That the individual is not necessarily the best unit of analysis for decision making or the determination of decision making (we explore group decision making for example later in Chapter 7). 17 So, the further to the right we travel in Figure 1.5, the greater the divergence from a normative rationality we observe in effective decision making. Later in the text we consider how rationality changes to become highly interdependent upon others when cohesive groups emerge in highly pressurized and often political contexts (chapter 7). We also consider how differing situations and contexts give rise to different dominant rationalities for decision making – such as the take the best (TTB) model of forced choice, the QuickEst model of value estimation or the categorization by elimination model (Lee & Cummins, 2004) (see chapter 6 for a fuller discussion). Finally, Lee & Cummins (2004) seek to unify the spectrum of rationalities in figure 1.5, by adopting one rationality which evidences different threshold levels of evidence to support decision making (where for example, the RAT model requires all available evidence to be sampled). To illustrate the importance of both the RAT model and other forms of rationality, Walker and Knox (1997) consider how consumers make buying behaviour decisions when purchasing different types of goods. The research explored what factors shaped an intention to buy newspapers, kitchen towels and breakfast cereals. The findings suggest that the greater the level of personal involvement and preference with the good, the more this shapes the decision processes to choose one good over another. Thus for newspapers, where personal enjoyment and content were identified as important, individuals will expend effort in locating their preferred product type. This was not observed with the kitchen towels or breakfast cereals, where despite a preference (or brand) being identified, the dominant rationality was not RAT based (i.e. users did not evaluate all the local offerings from good providers) – but more reflected a TTB heuristic (or a satisficing outcome). 1.6) Summary This opening chapter has outlined the context of this text and the breadth and diversity of the discipline of management decision making. Importantly, there is an integral duality in the decision making process firstly – between the science and art perspectives, which was latterly explored through a consideration of the different types of rationality which have been observed and explored in decision making. This has extended from a normative rational view to an anarchic and heuristic view. In the next chapter, the discussion begins to consider decision analysis and positivistic methods of decision making. 18