Introduction
The business environment comprises of complex factors that require scrutiny before a decision is made concerning the environment. An organization must have a clear planning process in order to enhance its decision making. A clear planning process involves having an understanding of interrelated questions within a corporation.
Early organizational planning comprises of strategy drawing, where possible environmental occurrences are considered and an appropriate course of action is determined. Strategic planning seeks to maximize on the return of resources.
There is need to constantly devise a tactical approach through which objectives can be achieved since resources are limited and competition is high. Several theories enhance the decision making process in organizations. The success or failure of decision making either directly affects an organization through improved performance or worsens the overall performance.
Decisions require constant evaluation to enable an accurate and consistent appraisal. It helps in revealing existing gaps and determining their solutions to the benefit of the organization.
The business environment is continuously changing, thus keeping a close check through constant evaluation and re-evaluation provides the opportunity to identify gaps well in advance. An evaluation of decisions over time equally helps in identifying alternatives that enhance the organization’s ability to cushion against performance risks.
The Decision Making Process
With the advent of globalization, market integration has been created through internationalization. Organizations, therefore, compete with each other for resources and market across the globe. Market consolidation and optimization must be achieved for organizations to succeed in such operation environments. Strategic flexibility must be created such that the organization can instantly change its course of action to suit an equally complex and fast changing business environment.
This is not an easy task because nobody fully understands what the external business environment will look like in the immediate future. Thus, although strategies may be formulated with the purpose of countering external environment changes, they may end up failing to capture the actual requirement needed to attain goals.
To build strategic flexibility, a long-term commitment is needed towards developing, as well as nurturing important critical resources. I will struggle to create a learning organization that offers room for development of great skill in creating, acquiring, as well as transferring knowledge. Behavior modification within the organization must be achieved in order to replicate insights and knowledge about its operations and environment.
Particular problems afflicting an organization will remain to be of great concern as a way of integrating the learning process successfully. I will carry out experiments with new approaches with a view of improving the current approach, reflect on history and past experiences in order to learn from them, and be able to quickly transfer knowledge throughout the organization in an easy manner.
Strategic management
My strategic management will involve four important elements that include environmental scanning, strategy formulation, evaluation and control, and strategy implementation.
My strategic decisions will focus on the future of the organization, beginning with evaluation of the current performance results, review of the corporate governance, and inspection and review of the external environment. Equally, an internal evaluation and review of the corporate environment are critical before carrying out an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with the organization.
After exhausting the above activities, I will generate alternative strategies before evaluating each one of them to come up with the best alternative. This precedes the implementation phase, which is finally followed by the evaluation process. Strategic audit involves a systematic analysis of areas that encounter issues, including a question checklist comprising of the numerous functions and activities of the organization.
Management and the Decision Process
My decision making mandate will include executing four major functions. Other than leading the organization, I will lay out plans that will steer the firm ahead. My role will also aim at controlling the firm, as well as playing the role of organizing.
I will continuously undertake the decision making process, where I will evaluate alternatives in order to achieve the set objective. The existing expectations concerning a given course of action will push my decision making into settling for the course of action that would most likely lead to goal attainment.
I realize that as a manager, I will be operating in a highly uncertain environment that includes fluctuation in currency exchange, change in the political platform, and competitive actions, among many other aspects (De Bruijn, Heuvelhof & Veld, 2010).
The focus of my decision making will be on goal achievement, where I will mainly concentrate on challenges that have numerous alternatives. This will be by selecting an alternative course of action from among various alternatives (De Bruijn, Heuvelhof & Veld, 2010). While doing this, I will pay attention to five important contexts, including the situation and location, the rationale, the methodology, as well as the type of decision and the participants.
Purpose of Decisions
As a manager, I realize the fact that my role entails a rational activity that arrives at particular decisions depending on the surrounding circumstances. Past situations and experience are significant factors that shape decisions, and it is important for me to base decisions on such factors.
Decisions also work towards aligning personal with professional goals to enhance organizational performance. I have to work hard to achieve this harmony because failure will imply the existence of a clash of interests.
Decision making Approaches
My decision making approach may borrow from two existing approaches. They include the normative, rational, or classical model, and the descriptive, bounded rational, organizational model (Flynn & Currie, 2012). Following the normative approach, I will first recognize the problem, set up the objectives, and finally determine the available options.
In doing this, I will evaluate the available options, select a particular option, and execute its implementation according to the intended objectives. After implementation, I must monitor and observe the implemented strategy closely. The cycle is a continuous one as it returns to the problem recognition stage because of the continuous nature of problems and challenges that are contained in the business environment. The figure below illustrates the working modality of a normative model.
Source: (Flynn & Currie, 2012),
I will also use my cognitive talent to explore on the ability and capacity of bounded rationality. In particular, I will analyze the situation at hand before offering solutions to the problem. This will, however, require that I utilize all the available information to make quality decisions. There has to be adequate information available to make this a possibility.
Both my rationality and that of the organization will be critical in achieving appropriate decisions using the bounded rationality model. Thus, the most challenging area for me will be balancing of my own rationality to ensure that the decisions I make reflect the objectives of the organization.
Structure of Decisions
As a human being, I realize the fact that the decision making process involves the brain, cognitive categorization, and assimilation or data integration. As a fact, the decisions that I will offer will likely be affected by factors such as emotions, intuition, stereotyping, and halo effect.
However, I will always rely on critical thinking, which is an intellectual process and approach through which situations and ideas are evaluated. This will help me to counter the challenge and pressure of being personal in my thinking.
I am equally aware of existing errors that may limit my critical thinking, including making quick decisions, lack of confidence in as far as decision making ability is concerned, and lack of desire and ability to think critically. Status quo stands in the way of thinking. It is the same case with anchoring, as well as framing. I have to devise ways of putting these issues into check.
Ethics in Decision Making
My obligation in decision making entails incorporating moral principles in the decisions they make. This will enhance benefit maximization for the prosperity of the organization (Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2011). In particular, it implies that I have to be honest, trustworthy, and full of integrity when dealing with others, being attentive to all the stakeholders, building the community, and having respect for individuals.
I can determine whether an act is ethical by establishing whether it is right in the first place, whether it achieves fairness, and whether it hurts others. Determining whether my own child would comfortably do the same thing, or if I would still be comfortable in case details of my decisions were made public are some of the best evaluations for ethics.
Being unethical will affect my organization in several ways, including leading to bankruptcy, redundancies, loss of loyalty, and disillusionment of young talent (Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2011).
Theory Application on Improvement of Decision
While applying theory, I will always remember the four major classifications that include virtue ethics, ethical learning and growth, deontological ethics, and teleological ethics. I will have to build principles or beliefs that disregard consequences.
This will include building personal qualities that act as means to an end rather than ends to themselves. By considering virtue with great regard, I will often strive to do right things for the society and get the right balance between self and society’s qualities or interests.
Deontological ethics
If I can carry out an action as a duty, this will make it morally right. To achieve this, my main emphasis will be on duties, which refer to the actions that need to be undertaken or shunned regardless of consequences (MacKinnon, 2013).
My morality is evaluated on the basis of whether the performance of the action can be done by everyone minus the occurrence of any contradiction, or whether the action considers everyone as equal entities who deserve respect other than considering respect only as a means (MacKinnon, 2013). The action rule is also subjected to scrutiny as to whether it can be accepted by rationality, both on the receiving and the giving end.
Teleological or utilitarianism
People will measure the good or bad in my actions basing on the outcomes of my acts. In this regard, more emphasis is placed on the end rather than the means to be used. There shall always be two sides in any argument that I will involve myself in. I will only develop knowledge through social dialogue and interaction with others (Graham, 2011).
However, all the discourse I engage in will have to be formal in order to achieve validity. I have to maintain sincerity and truth about the content justice involved and the procedural justice. Sometimes I will be expected to rely on outcomes of an action in order to judge the action itself. Depending on the people involved in the process, I will sometimes be expected to explore how much pleasure is generated from an act because happiness or pleasure concerns the good often sought after.
I also note the fact that according to Maximalism, right deeds lead to greatest good. The right deeds lead to the least undesirable result possible. This can only be achieved if I hold all individuals as equal, and when I determine the fact that they are all affected by consequences of an action or result (Graham, 2011).
Ethical learning and growth
There has to be change and development in my understanding for me to learn. Thus, it is not possible to achieve an ethical organization by decree. Measurement of the ethical performance is achieved through policies, ends, or outcomes.
My ethical contribution will often be made in a group, while my own individual interest is what constitutes the Basic Good. Finally, covey hinges on the principle that it is always important to begin something while considering its end. Achieving public good would, thus, imply achieving a positive aspect that is considered as non-rival and non-excludable (MacKinnon, 2013).
Conclusion
As an organizational decision maker, the environment of operation is challenging and ever changing. The dynamic environment for business currently offers a lot of challenges to the attainment of the intended objectives. This complex environment includes political changes, economic situations, competition forces, and socio-cultural aspects. These are practical environmental factors that have a lot of potential in affecting a business positively or negatively.
As a leader, I will deal with these challenges by formulating strategic plans that seek to apportion the limited resources effectively. My strategies are formulated out of decisions made in order to counter the challenges brought about by the complex business environment. Part of my decision making involves particular processes and steps, including reviewing the experiences encountered in the past and formulating alternative solutions before settling on the best suitable option.
I will have to incorporate ethics in order to resonate well with the goals and objectives of the organization. This refers to the moral principles that also consider other people’s welfare within the decisions arrived at. I must consider the community and the shareholders in my decisions in order to enhance the organization’s overall performance. I will focus on the four classifications of ethical decision making, which include deontology, ethical learning and growth, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics.
As a deontologist, I will anchor my decision making on the principles of justice, fairness and rights. I will also give discourse a chance. I will need to build my arguments of ethics on ethical egoism and communitarianism in order to achieve ethical learning and growth.
References
De Bruijn, H., Heuvelhof, E., & Veld, R. (2010). Process management: Why project management fails in complex decision making processes, 2nd Ed. Berlin Heidelberg: Springer
Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2011). Business ethics: Ethical decision making and cases. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage
Flynn, J., & Currie, D. (2012). Management decision-making in context, 2nd Ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Graham, G. (2011). Theories of ethics: an introduction to moral philosophy with a selection of classic readings. New York, NY: Routledge
MacKinnon, B. (2013). Ethics: Theory & contemporary issues – Concise edition, 2nd ed.: Theory and contemporary issues. Boston, MA: Wadsworth