INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT
UNIT 7
Managerial Decision Making
Source: Daft, R.D. (2005). Management. 7th ed. Chp. 9.
At the end of this unit students should be able to: * Explain the importance of Decision Making to the organization. * Differentiate between Programmed and Non-Programmed Decisions and relate the various degrees of Certainty and Uncertainty. * Describe the characteristics of different Decision Making Models. * Outline the Decision Making process, using current organizational issues. * -------------------------------------------------
Distinguish between the Personal Decision Making Styles used by managers.

Decisions and Decision Making
A Decision is a choice made from available alternatives
Decision Making is the process of identifying problems and opportunities and resolving them Categories of Decisions * Programmed Decisions * Situations occurred often enough to enable decision rules to be developed and applied in the future * Made in response to recurring organizational problems * Non-programmed Decisions – in response to unique, poorly defined and largely unstructured, and have important consequences to the organization

Certainty, Risk, Uncertainty, Ambiguity

* Many decisions that managers deal with every day involve at least some degree of uncertainty and require non-programmed decision making * May be difficult to make * Made amid changing factors * Information may be unclear * May have to deal with conflicting points of view

* Certainty - all the information the decision maker needs is fully available * Risk - decision has clear-cut goals - good information is available - future outcomes associated with each alternative are subject to chance * Uncertainty * managers