DECISION MAKING PROCESS - MANAGEMENT

DECISION MAKING PROCESS

The decision-making as a process of administration has a wide range of application mainly in public administration. Behind this the work, a celebrity of public administration was active and he was H. A. Simon. His renowned work—Administrative Behavior; A Study of Decision-Making Process in Administrative Organization was published in 1948.

Herbert Simon divided the concept into two main parts—one is decision— being arrived at and process of action. Mere making of decision is not enough and therefore its implementation. So both these sections are interconnected and important. Herbert Simon once said: a theory of administration should be concerned with the processes of decision as well as the processes of action. Simon pointed out that for the proper management of an organization a policy of comprehensive in nature is required to be adopted.

So decision-making is a very important part of an organization. Herbert Simon, in fact, is the pioneer in the field of decision-making concept because he felt that if decision were not taken properly and timely that may spoil the objective of the business organization and keeping this in mind it is essential that an organization will resort to utmost caution as to the adoption of decision and at the same time will focus on the implementation of the decision. So both taking and implementing decision are important.

Definition:

“Decision-making is usually defined as a process or sequence of activities involving stages of problem recognition, search for information, definition of alternatives and the selection of an actor of one from two or more alternatives consistent with the ranked preferences”.

Definition offered by the C.O.D. is, the mathematical study of strategies for optimal decision-making between options involving different risks or expectations of gain or loss depending on the outcome.

Decision making theory is a theory of how rational individuals should behave under risk and uncertainty. It uses a set of axioms about how rational individuals behave which has been widely challenged on both empirical and theoretical ground.

This definition has been offered by the author of an article published in Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics. The author emphasizes on the rationality of individuals and at the same time how they should behave.

So we can say that decision-making denotes the formulation of general policy for the management of an organization which may be business organization or administrative organization. The point to note is that the nature and implementation of decision-making may be different in both places but it remains that in every case the importance of decision-making remains intact. To sum up, the decision-making means the adoption and application of rational choice for the management of private, business or governmental organization in an efficient manner.

The decision‐making process begins when a manager identifies the real problem. The accurate definition of the problem affects all the steps that follow; if the problem is inaccurately defined, every step in the decision‐making process will be based on an incorrect starting point. One way that a manager can help determine the true problem in a situation is by identifying the problem separately from its symptoms.:

Nature:

If we go through the numerous stages of decision-making and the implementation of the decision we shall find that it has certain features, some of which are briefly stated below

1. In one of his writings Herbert Simon has said that decision or decision making “is a matter of compromise”. Why it is called so? There are number of alternatives, before a policy/decision maker and while making decision he is to select one or more alternatives which will be suitable for him or which will serve his purpose.

While pursuing this policy or technique the decision-maker is forced to make compromises and the main aim of compromise is to fulfill the objective of the organization or management. The compromise becomes inevitable on another ground. The policy maker must see that the policy is not divorced from real situation and the real situation chiefly relates to the declared policy of the management or government organ.

An abstract policy adopted with a lot of fanfare may not come to the benefit of the government department. So whenever the state authority adopts any policy or takes a decision it must see that conflict between the authority and policy will not arise. That is why it has been found that the policy maker is compelled to make compromises and modifications of approaches and policies or decisions.

2. There must be rationality in decision making process. We have just now pointed out that compromise and decision making both is linked with each other. The policy maker makes compromises on the ground that this policy/decision will be a realistic one. Similarly, while a decision is being made the decision maker must demonstrate utmost rationality.