Role of Perception in Decision Making - Essay Example

It has been found that cultural background indeed helps in shaping the behavior of an individual (Husted and Allen, 2008). Today we are living in the times of globalization and liberalization of economies, which makes it obligatory on the part of the organizations and individuals to work with people from different cultural backgrounds. At times an organization also gets to be known as having particular culture by taking in consideration the working behavior and cultural background of the workforce.

Managing a whole lot of diversity forms the key component of the effective management process. Diversity within an organization can also be effectively managed if one can analyze how we form a typical perception about someone. Workplace diversity is stated to have a positive as well as a negative aspect. The diversity on account of gender also influences the behavior of an organization. Thompson's (2000) came out with a detailed study suggesting that men hold more negative views of diversity than women.

This view gets strength from an experiment carried out on 2686 workers at an electronics company. This experiment came out with findings that women of all racial/ethnic backgrounds held more positive perceptions of diversity than Caucasian males (Hostager and Meuse, 2008). . Well a number of similar studies have also found out that there is no significant difference in ethical perceptions of men and women. But at the same time, it needs to be emphasized that no study has so far indicated that men are more ethical than the women counterparts (Marta et al, 2008).

This goes on to show that there's indeed some amount of truth in the fact that women are more ethically perceptive/ sensitive. While managing an organization such factors need to be taken into account for effective management of the organization. What are the positive and negative effects of using perceptive "shortcuts" when judging othersPerceptions are supposed to help in the process of making judgments as well. While stuck up in some tricky situation and the manager is entrusted with the task of judging a person, a process, a team or an organization then the perceptive 'shortcuts' come in handy.

But, there is also a possibility that making use of such 'perceptive shortcuts' could actually result in a wrongful judgment. Often, collective behavior of a team depends upon the nature of judgments taken by some individuals (Husted and Allen, 2008). The model of Trevino on ethical decision making in business tries to explore the relationship between individualism and collectivism. The key elements of this model are; the perception of a moral problem, moral judgment, and ethical behavior. Some of the positive and negative effects of using perceptive shortcuts can be summarized as;i.

Positive effectsa. Decision can be taken quicklyb. Follow up action is also aided by the perceptive shortcutsc. Process of decision making become easierd. It helps in