Researching of Decision-Making Process
Making a decision is not a one-time act but the result of a process that has a specific duration and structure. This process is one of the main tasks of the top management of any company. Successful business development depends on how effective measures will be taken to resolve problems by the manager. When making a decision, it is necessary to consider specific behavioral patterns that determine how the activity will occur. Organizational theories that explain the relationship between a business and its environment and how this affects its mode of operation can help an organization in this.
In the decision-making process, the organization must take into account values, opinions, and the structure of authority. Values help determine how to behave in a situation of uncertainty, indicate the direction, and coordinate movement. Breuer and Lüdeke-Freund (2017) also mention that values can motivate the development of new networks and can help challenge societal problems. In companies with a solid corporate culture, values become the core that helps companies survive in the years of crisis and maintain a strong corporate culture. These include humanity, customer orientation, employee loyalty, safety, human rights, and professionalism.
The chances of effective implementation of the solution increase significantly when the people involved have contributed to the solution and sincerely believe in what they are doing. Therefore, an excellent way to gain recognition of a decision is to involve other people in the process of making it. However, the participation of employees in decision-making, like any other management method, will not be effective in every situation. The full implementation of decisions requires the activation of the entire management process, mainly its organizational and motivational functions. Sometimes, in cases of low hierarchy levels and absence of autonomy, restructuring the leadership team can play a significant role in the improvement of the organization.
The head at all levels of the organization’s management system acts as a leading person since they are the ones who determine the purposefulness of the team’s work, personnel selection, the psychological climate, and other aspects of the enterprise’s activities. Specifically, it was mentioned in Goolaup and Ismayilov’s work, “power distance as a cultural dimension has been used to dictate the leadership styles and behaviors in an organization as it deals directly with the expectations and distribution of power, authority, and status” (p. 40). This paper is relevant to the topic since, for those organizations where the head has unquestioning subordination and authority among subordinates, the power will extend to everyone without exception in the form that the initiative comes only from the heads themselves, from lower levels of the structure it is not acceptable for them. However, it should be noted here that the responsibility of a person with power will be somewhat vague, in the sense that all the blame will fall not on the head but on subordinates for making a decision that did not lead to a good effect.
The power will be extended to subordinates in that the head will listen to all possible options for making decisions, including from employees at lower levels of the hierarchical ladder. However, again, decision-making will usually depend solely on the head – this is in an organization with a moderate power level. In an organization with a weak level of authority of the head, responsibility should be distributed in some way between the boss and his employees in cases of making an incorrect decision. In practice, everything will depend on the degree of authority of the head in the organization, in other words, the degree of responsibility and decency of the boss.
Many theories are applicable in organizations to help them work more efficiently and improve decision-making. One of these theories is considered to be a theory called non-classical. It draws attention to the organization’s personnel, understood as a system of interrelated behavior of many people working in a changeable external and internal environment. The critical management task is the motivation of personnel, coordination, and cooperation of their actions. The undoubted advantages of involving personnel in decision-making are the improvement of the organization’s internal and external HR aspects. Employees who have shared and made essential decisions consider them their own and gradually become brand ambassadors, protecting and promoting the company in the future. It is also an excellent prevention of revolutionary ideas and toxic moods since it is possible to track the appearance of discontent in the bud and adjust the strategy or process objections.
The primary assumption associated with this theory is that the forces that arise during the interaction between people can surpass the manager’s efforts. Sometimes employees can react much more strongly to pressure from colleagues in the group than to the wishes of management and material incentives. However, the duty of subordinates in this theory should be to follow the leader responsibly, not only fulfilling the orders but also actively participating in all decision-making processes.
Thus, the decision-making process occupies a key place in the work of any organization. The success of the company depends on how effectively and intelligently this or that action will be taken. When making decisions, it is necessary to consider such factors as values, opinions, and, in particular, the hierarchical structure of the organization. The manager is the person who bears all the responsibility in this process. To facilitate it, various organizational theories can be undertaken to help better understand the behavioral patterns in the organization.
References
Breuer, H., & Lüdeke-Freund, F. (2017). Values-based network and business model innovation. International Journal of Innovation Management, 21(3). Web.
Goolaup, S., & Ismayilov, T. (2011). The influence of power distance on leadership behaviours and styles. Umeå School of Business.