Managing under Uncertainty - Essay Example

Managing Under Uncertainty Student's Name Institution's Name Date Abstract The paper focuses on analysing a decision I previously made while working as a part-timer in a restaurant in town. The main aim of this paper is to establish the decisions theories applied in this process and to identify strength and weakness of the decision made. Decision making in this case employed two theories that include bounded rationality theory and attributed theory. The two theories were applied separately in separate situation. Bounded rationality theory was applied to solve the problem that occurred in the restaurant while on duty, while attribution theory was applied to react against the manager's decision. The decision main strength was that it solved the identified problem. The second decision strength is that it was based on critical thinking. Among two decisions weaknesses, the first decision did not consider rational factors that were available for application. Moreover, it was not weigh the risk factor. The second decision was fully based on emotion and cognitive biasness. Based on this analysis, it is recommended that knowledge on decision making theory could have served a great deal in eliminating the resulting problems. With this knowledge more attention could have been paid on risks, and control of emotion and cognitive biasness in the decisions made. Managing Under Uncertainty Introduction The main decision that I made, which resulted to afterward regrets and re-evaluation was a decision I made while taking a part-time job in a fast food restaurant in the town. In this restaurant, we always cooked defined portions of fast food to prevent wastage. However, one day when I was on call, I managed to sell all pizzas within the first four hours after opening the restaurant to a group of travellers who stopped by. I felt that I still had a lot of time left and I could not disappoint all my usual customers who would come later for a pizza. I therefore decided to order more pizzas from our kitchen. I ordered half of the usual amount to keep the restaurant running for the rest of the day. Although I managed to sell at least two-third of the new order, one-third was left unsold and the entire loss was deducted from my wages. This made me angry and quitted the job. Analysis The analysis of my decision regarding the situation and regarding my punishment illustrates that two theories were applied each in each situation. These decisions according to the analysis were based on rationality theory and attribution theory. Therefore, this section analyses the application of the bounded rationality theory in making decision regarding how to solve the foreseen problem in the restaurant, and attribution theory while evaluating the managers decision to fine me, and my decision to quit the job. Bounded Rationality Theory Analysis The evaluation of the situation demonstrates the application of bounded rationality in deciding on whether the restaurant should run for the rest of the day without Pizza, or more pizzas should be made to cater for the remaining part of the day. This is because the decision was based on the logic that a day cannot end without other customers asking for pizza. Moreover, individuals who had purchased the largest part of pizzas were not usual restaurant customers, but travellers. Thus logically, the restaurant usual customers would still come for their usual orders. My ability to make the decision was limited by the fact that I did not have enough information on the pattern of the flow of customers in the restaurant, especially those that ordered pizza. Moreover, there was a time constrain since I was not sure of when the other customer would arrive and ask for pizza (Grune-Yanoff, 2007). Thus, to ensure that no customer goes without the expected service, extra pizzas were needed urgently. The approximation on the amount of pizza to be made on the second round was basically made on limited information that I had gathered during my stay in the restaurant. Although there were actual records to indicate the daily consumption of pizza in the restaurant, the records were not very detailed on the flow of customers who ordered pizza at a specific time. Therefore, the information was just enough to make a general estimation and I needed to make a decision based on this limited information. Customer retention was also highly regarded in this decision, since it was one of the restaurant commitments. Ensuring the availability of all products was essential in enhancing customer's retention. The bounded rationality theory also allows decision making based on cognitive limitation. I was not a restaurant manager and thus, I did not have all the knowledge required to make effective decisions as a manger could do. Thus, bounded rationality in this decision is highly demonstrated by all these facts (Smythe, 2003). Attribution Theory Analysis Based on the analysis, my decision regarding the manager's reaction was founded on attribution theory. This is because, despite of employing all my efforts to benefit the restaurant, the manager only focused on the unsold pizza and my contribution to the wastage. The manager did not consider the situation that resulted to my decision. However, he only considered that my decision resulted to wastage of one-third of the extra pizza that I ordered. Moreover, he considered that I was too junior to make such a great decision in the restaurant. His decision was basically based on how he perceived me. He did not also consider the extra profit the restaurant had made from the second sale. To be fair enough, the manager could have considered what he could have done if he was in my position. However, on the contrary he imposed the usual punishment rule without considering my actual situation. The attribution theory principle is demonstrated in this situation since the I blamed the situation for the happenings. Also, I blamed manager's behaviour on his personality ( Oghojafo et al., 2012). According to Gurevich (2012), attribution theory is based on two major principle. One is, when explaining own behaviours, we tend to blame the environment and situation. This happened on two ways in this case; the manager explained his penalty on the happening, which was the loss of one-third of the pizza I had ordered without his consultation. On the other hand, I explained my behaviour based on the situation that made me take such a drastic measure. I did not consider my role as an employee to inform the manager of the new situation. In the second principle according to Gurevich, the theory guides that when trying to explain others' behaviour we focus on the enduring internal attributions that include personalities. In my opinion, the manager fined me because he was jealous of my day achievement: he could not take it that my decision was fruitful. However, according to him, he could not take it that I was insubordinate and too arrogant to consult and thus, I deserved the punishment. In this case, the attribution theory demonstrates how our two decisions and reasoning were based on unrealistic personal ground, which when well reasoned out a different and more favourable situation could have been attained. Critical Discussion The main strength of my decision making is that, I was able to satisfy all the customers who came looking for pizza in the restaurant for that day. Therefore, my decision varied in maintaining the restaurant customers. However, based on the rationality model, this decision could have been incomplete since it did not consider all other aspects that were maybe available to make a better decision (Cabantous & Gond, 2011). For instance, I had data on pizza bought by travellers and those bought by regional customers. I had an option considering the travellers portion as the actual amount of day deficiency. However, I failed to do so since I only focused on limitations such as limited information. This resulted to the wastage that costed me my wages. Another major weakness was that I took the responsibility of making decision alone while they were so many individuals in the restaurant who could have assisted in this. Group performance in decision making is regarded more effective than the average person performance (Hardman, 2009). Therefore I believe with group performance we could have managed to make a more cost effective decision than I made. This could have minimized the losses or even resulted to sharing of losses and thus, lowering my burden. I also had an option of consulting the manager which I did not do. Taking the role of decision making was actually unethical act (Pasternak, n.d.). One strength of the decisions made lies in the manager's decision to fine me. This was basically meant to warn me and others on taking duties that did not belong to us. Decision making in any business is made by top management and thus, subordinates are only required to follow the instructions. This means his decision was not based on emotion, but on critical thinking (Dror et al., 2005). In case my decision had resulted into more losses than incurred, the manager could have been in trouble too. Therefore, it was right for him to stop future similar events by punishing me. The major weakness in this case is that my reaction to leave the job was based on emotion (Taghavifard et al., 2009). I could not understand why the manager considered fining me instead of thanking me for solving the problem. This prevented me from seeing my mistake in insubordination. Moreover, it was a norm in the restaurant for workers to pay for any single loss they caused. Therefore, it was actually my duty to do so, and I was supposed to have considered that before taking the role of decision making (Fitzgerald, 2013). Recommendation Decision making is a very important process in any business. This is because it highly determines the business position in the next minute. Therefore, decision makers require to have enough knowledge on various techniques they can be applied to make the best decision. After learning the models, theories and frameworks required for decision making, I realized that I had very little knowledge while making the discussed decisions. The current knowledge gives me a number of ways in which I could have handled the situation to make better decisions. For instance, I only considered the restaurant issue of losing customers due to its inability to satisfy then in one day. With current knowledge I could have considered other risks associated with my decision to solve the problem on my own. I now know that in decision making, one need to evaluate risks and their chances of taking place. This could have assisted me in averting the risk of being fined, by considering reporting the situation to the manager (Riabacke, 2006). I also learnt from the prospect theory that decisions are normally founded on the possible value of gain or loss and not final outcomes (Taghavifard et al., 2009). If I had this knowledge before, I could have considered my losses and gains in all that I intended to do as an employee. On the contrary, I only considered the positive outcome and thus ended up losing a huge part of my wages and my job too. Moreover, the lesson has made me aware of a number of reactions that I made which was attributed by my emotions. For instance, based on framing effect, individuals react to a certain choice in various manner based on whether it is presented as negative or positive (Dror et al., 2005). I was expecting to be praised for work well done and thus, when the opposite happened, I employed cognitive biasness and reacted emotionally by leaving my job. I could have looked at the situation more critically with current knowledge. However, emotions and cognitive biasness took hold of me. The current knowledge has also made me realize that even in absence of a manager, group decision of individuals in the same cognitive ability is far much better than individual judgement (Hardman, 2009). This way, I could have managed to avoid all the problems that I experienced later on. References Cabantous, L., & Gond, J. (2011). Rational decision making as performative Praxis: explaining rationality's eternel retour. Organization Science, 22(3), 573-586. Dror, I. E., Peron, A. E., Hind, S. L., & Charlton, D. (2005). 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