Improving Desicion Making in the Workplace: for Enhancing Performance of Organisations and National Economies - Essay Example

IMPROVING DECISION MAKING IN THE WORKPLACE: FOR ENHANCING PERFORMANCE OF ORGANISATIONS AND NATIONAL ECONOMIES INTRODUCTION: Organisations today are decentralizing decision making authority, sometimes reducing the role that the middle management level plays, in order to successfully compete in today’s global markets, states O’Neill (2006). Information technology is widely used throughout the organisation. Consequently, job requirements are broader and more complex, with greater workloads and responsibilities. The accepted method of getting work done is through team-based decision making and activity; and employees and teams are expected to work autonomously to carry out their work goals and team mission (O’Leary-Kelly et al, 1994). DISCUSSION: The Elements of Decision Making in the Workplace: According to Beach (1996: 1), in the last forty years of behavioral decision research there have been four major changes in how unaided decision making is viewed. The early view was that all decisions were choices which were the results of extensive evaluation of the available options for achieving maximum utility. The first change came from recognizing that evaluation is seldom extensive or exhaustive. The second change came from recognition that decision makers possess a variety of strategies for making choices, many of which have aims quite different from maximization of expected utility (Payne, 1976). The third change, which is still happening, comes from recognition that choices occur relatively rarely and that past experience usually provides ways or policies of dealing with problems. Decisions are required primarily when failure of these solutions occurs or is anticipated, placing decision making squarely within the broader context of cognitive science, suggesting that it is a backup for the times when experience fails to provide adequate guidance for how to behave. The fourth change, which is an extension and consolidation of the previous three, comes from recognition that when decisions occur they occur in steps. The first step consists of screening out unacceptable options, and the second step consists of choosing the best option from among the survivors of screening (Beach, 1996). Each decision maker possesses certain principles comprising of values, morals and ethics to define how things should be and how people ought to behave. These are “self-evident truths” about what the individual or the group stands for, about the goals that are therefore worthy of pursuit, and the acceptable ways of pursuing those goals. Beach (1996) states that often these principles though not clearly articulated are powerful influences on decisions. The decision maker also has to coordinate the specific plans for the different goals, so that they do not interfere with one another. Image Theory assumes that decision makers use three different schematic knowledge structures to organize their thinking about decisions. These structures are called images according to Miller, Galanter, and Pribram (1960). The first of the three is the value image, the constituents of which are the decision makers principles. The second image is the trajectory image, the decision makers vision of the ideal future, the constituents of which are previously adopted goals. The third image is the strategic image, which consist of the various plans that have been adopted for achieving the goals on the trajectory image. According to Sims (1994: 40) image theory claims that people will adopt a course of action that best fits their individual principles, current goals, and plans for the future. Decision Making in the Workplace for Enhancing Organisational Performance: Approaches to workplace organisation and management have changed, and there is a tendency to reduce the levels of hierarchy and replace these with flatter and more flexible team-based structures. Workforce participation in decision making processes is part of new management policies (Foley, et al, 2004). However, including the workforce in decision making or making efforts to implement high performance work practices do not always ensure employee satisfaction. A case study analysis was conducted by Danford, et al (2004: 14) on the impact of high performance work practices and workplace partnership on skilled workers in the United Kingdom’s aerospace industry. In contrast to assumptions that such practices increase empowerment and participation, it was observed that there was evidence of a democratic deficit in workplace decision making and deterioration in the quality of working life. According to O’Neill (2006: 45), “ a substantial amount of research shows that decision latitude, control over pace of work, location of work and other related ‘job-control’ characteristics are related to stress, health, learning and performance”. Jobs with high job-control levels and high demand are seen to result in positive health and performance outcomes. Jobs with high control are more challenging, and stress arising from demands promote active response and requirement for full utilization of skills and capabilities. High decision latitude and participative decision making are part of the new work environment, encouraging autonomy and flexible, creative behaviour on the part of the employees. The degree of stress experienced by an employee is related to the level of decision latitude or “control” available over the job. “Decision latitude is the degree to which the workers can employ their natural skills and talents on the job, and the freedom to make decisions about how to do the job. Decision latitude is also related to the amount of control available over the pace or rate at which tasks must be completed” (O’Neill, 2006: 53). According to Karasek and Theorell (1990), large-scale research studies have shown that those whose jobs allowed them greater decision making control in doing their work, had health that remained largely unchanged over several years. The authors state that the effects of job stress over a period of time can lead to serious health consequences such as hypertension and coronary heart disease. Besides decision latitudes, the psychological demands of a job include deadlines to be met, amount of work due to be completed, need to maintain high levels of concentration for long periods of time, but these are not observed to be related to stress levels or quality of health of the employee. According to Land and Jarman (1993), factors which are critical to good decision making and work effectiveness are: learning and ongoing enhancement of job skills, which are required for increased job autonomy. Many organisations provide training to their employees to encourage autonomy and learning skills. Business units functioning as learning organisations help to improve performance at all levels. In a research study conducted by Daniel and Hogarth (1990) for the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, they found that the introduction of new technology was supported by the workers and their union representatives. In contrast, organisational change which involved substantial changes in work organisation or working practices: received a more mixed response, resisted and supported by almost equal numbers, with strong resistance to change apparent among those who resisted. Impact of Decision Making on Performance of National Economies: The most significant issue at the turn of the century and in the new millennium is that of globalisation. (Fitzimmons, 2002). Globalisation is characterised by qualitative changes towards a system in which distinct national economies are categorized and integrated into the system by international processes and proceedings. With the opening of the world markets, increased economic growth from international trade is the goal of decision making at organisational and national levels. According to Marjoribanks (2000), processes of structural re-organisation include increasing integration of national economies on a global scale and the re-organisation of corporate structures. The development of new technologies has influenced economic restructuring, and social relations. In the workplace, developments in social regulation include shifts in industrial relations systems from centralized to enterprise and individual bargaining, withdrawal of the role of the state, workplace and employment flexibility, and extending the role of the market. The current trend is: “organisational learning associated with new technologies in which workplace re-organisation can be focused towards employment security and career development, democratisation of decision making, and the establishment of employees as stake-holders” (Block, 1990: 203). On the other hand, some researchers (Pollert, 1988; Wood, 1989) found that rather than providing for greater worker participation in the workplace, the management uses new technology for control over the work force and and workplace organisation. Thus, it is observed that organisations differ, though most may choose to relegate decision making powers, some units may continue to reserve the decision making rights and responsibilities for the management level of the organisation. The decisions at the organisational level influence the development of national economies. CONCLUSION: The statement by Arnold, Cooper and Robertson (1998: 296), “How decisions: conscious or otherwise, are made in the workplace, and how they might be improved, is crucial to enhancing the performance of organisations and even national economies”, is found to be justified in this paper. Decision making is observed to be crucial on individual, group and organisational levels. It is the core area which determines performance, change management and progress of the members and the entire organisation. The combined impact of high performing organisations on national economies and consequently on the global market positively influence the progress of the nation as a whole. REFERENCES Arnold, John; Cooper, Cary L; Robertson, Ivan T. (1998). Work Psychology: Understanding Human Behaviour in the Workplace. United Kingdom: Pitman Publishing. Beach, Lee Roy. (1996). Decision Making in the Workplace: A Unified Perspective. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Beach, L.R. & Mitchell, T.R. (1978). “A Contingency Model for the Selection of Decision Strategies”. Academy of Management Review, Vol.3: pp.439-449. Block, Fred (1990). Postindustrial Possibilities: A Critique of Economic Reasoning. Berkeley: University of California Press. Danford, Andy; Richardson, Mike; Stewart, Paul; Tailby, Stephanie & Upchurch, Martin. 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