Decision Making Decision-Making: The Applicability

Decision Making

Decision-Making: the applicability of models to everyday life

Popular forms of management decision-making models were often created for the specific application to a workplace setting, but they can be applied in all facets of life. The rational model of decision making consists of a structured four-step sequence, including identifying the problem, generating a variety of possible solutions, then selecting, implementing, and evaluating the solution. It might be called a variation on the scientific method, and any student, including myself, applies this same method when selecting courses for a semester (Baker, 2004).

The student considers what requirements he or she needs to graduate or to meet the requirements of his or her major, what courses appear interesting, what seem comprehensible or do not have unmet prerequisites, what courses fit in with his or her other schedule obligations, and then the student arrives at a variety of solutions and selects the most optimal model (Baker, 2004). However, not all problems are approached so rationally. Consider a poor student, again, such as myself, who has had to trouble-shoot a problem, such as 'how do I survive on a limited budget this week?' What foods should I buy to satisfy my nutritional needs but are still within my financial reach?

This decision-making process is based upon limits, like the rational decision-making process of course selection. The limits imposed upon by external circumstances, but as "Simon's Normative Model Suggests," often decision-making appears irrational because it is characterized by limited information processing and too many options to consider under time constraints. I might not know that a cheaper supermarket exists several blocks away, for example. Rational decision-making is also compromised by use of rules of thumb or mental shortcuts, like a reflexive tendency to buy coffee at the convenient campus cafe, than to make my own coffee for a few cents and spend the savings on real, nutritious food (Baker, 2004).

Even "ethical decisions are usually made with incomplete information, insufficient resources, and limited time" (Williams 2004:1). A friend of mine recently gave his younger sister a ride to a friend's house. This made him feel quite generous -- until he discovered that she was forbidden to see this 'friend.' Applied to organizations, the situational, spontaneous, irrational approach that may or may not produce an efficient outcome that most of us use when making everyday decisions is called a "garbage can model" of decision-making (Nash & Levitt 1989:1) the garbage can model of organizational choice implies that random outcomes should be expected, because of time, the habits created by organizational standard operating procedures, and imperfect information, especially when people are confronted with a myriad of opportunities (Mass & Levitt 1989:1). Not even the most brilliant, ethical, and rational person has the ability to research every conceivable implication and alternative before making every decision in life.