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Welcome to Week 8, this week’s topic is very interesting
because it relates to the processes by which decisions are made in an
organisation. I also employed some theories in my second assignment.
Let’s have a brief look at the textbook …
Decisions might involve the strategic
direction of the organisation or might simply deal with the daily activities of
employees. The processes of decision-making are often farmed into models, some
scholars believe that decision making is an entirely rational and logical
process. This process includes five stages: formulation, concept development,
detailing, evaluation, and implementation.
But this rational and logical model of
decision making has been rejected by many other experts, March and Simon (1958, cited in Miller 2012, p.144-145)
propose that it is more realistic to look at organisational decision making as
a satisficing process in which decision makers attempt to make “fair enough” decisions.
This model is proposed as “bounded rationality,” that decision makers often
make decision basing on their past experience in similar context.
Miller (2012) in her literature also mentions
a large number of models that related with small-group decision making.
l Phase
model of decision making – groups go through a series of phases as they
systematically attempt to reach decisions: orientation, conflict, emergence,
and reinforcement
l Multiple
sequence model – groups are more likely to engage in complicated sequences of
cycles or to focus on the solution with little regard to problem definition or
discussion.
It
is arguable that in a group characterised by groupthink, there more concern
with appearing cohesive and maintaining group relations than there is with
making a high-quality decision (Miller 2012, p.148-149).
Participation
in decision making is worthwhile to be analysed, there are two models of
participation in decision making:
l The
affective model – participation is an organisational practice that should
satisfy employees’ higher-order needs. When these needs are met, job
satisfaction should result.
l The
cognitive model –participation in decision making improves the upward and
downward flow of information in the organisation. Thus decision is made with higher-quality
information.
Personally speaking, though I agree
with these advanced theories, I still reckon that the participative model of
decision-making is, say, an ideal concept for organisational communication. It
is undoubted that some large companies have already implemented this model in
order to improve the quality of decision, but the ordinary employees have
limited right to say when decision is in proceed. This is what happening in the
majority of companies in China, the authority can decide all, nonetheless they
give you an opportunity to say, but it is finally time-wasting.
But
in my experience, the “bounded rationality” theory is used prevalently, it seems very irrational and
illogical that without any marketing research and evaluation, a marketing
manager decide to make a contract with an advertising that my organisation (as
I introduced couple of weeks ago) would like to spend 100,000 RMB on three
month newspaper advert. When
an employee of marketing group queried the manager’s “unthinking” decision, he
got the answer like “I make this decision with my reason, I don’t need to do
that much necessary job, and it’s good enough!” Interestingly, the same thing
took place when the contract submitted to the treasurer, the treasurer rejected
the contract because she thought the total amount of contract was out of
budget. When the manager queried the treasurer’s decision, he got the similar
answer to what he just said, “in my opinion, the total amount is too high to
achieve the goal, you need to cut fifty percent of it otherwise I would not be
able to process it. 50% is good enough to achieve your goal!”
Markey (2013) in his news story articulate
the importance of employee’s voice in decision making. He emphasises that employee
participation in decision-making in the workplace, or employee voice, is
commonly associated with high-performance workplaces. Please read the link
below, this is a very good source of organisational decision-making.
References:
Markey, R (2013), ‘Employee voice can be heard to lift wellbeing and productivity’, Australian, 9 November, viewed 11 November 2013,
Miller, K 2012, Organisational communication – approaches and processes, 6th edn, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Boston.
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