Poor decision making Essay

Poor decision making problem is not confined at the individual level alone but is manifesting itself more and more in organizations. Employees have become more vociferous in their demands for a better deal. Various departments in an organization face a situation full of problems due to a number of reasons like goal diversity, scarcity of resources or task interdependence etc. Management today is faced with the awesome responsibility of ensuring optimum levels of growth and productivity in an environment that is full of conflicting situations. Modern manager spends over 20% of his time handling one form of problem or the other. DIFFERENT FACTORS It is not at all good to have any conflict and the role of a manager starts once it arises. These are very important points which one tend to answer in one way or the other depending upon the views he  Ã‚   hold about   problems. Environment Factor The behaviouralists maintained that since an organization was composed of individual- and they had different perceptions of goals and differing values, problem was bound to arise in the organization. Managers of various departments had separate priorities and conflicting ideas about resource allocation. Hence conflict was the unavoidable outcome. Subordinates may clash with the manager over whether the work can be accomplished in the given period of time or not. Social Factor The thinking currently prevalent about conflict has been labelled as the interactionist view. In contrast to the behaviouralist view which merely accepts conflict as inevitable, the integrationists not only accept conflict but also encourage it. However, they maintain that conflict must he regulated so that it does not get out of control producing dysfunctional consequences. ECONOMIC FACTOR   A large number of potential sources of conflict exist in organizational life as antecedent conditions and realistic basis for some conflicts. Any group exists for the purpose of attaining some goals with the help of available resources. These resources may be tangible like men, materials, and money or intangible like power, status or the manager’s time. No organization is capable of providing all the resources demanded by various units. Resources are limited and different groups have to compete for these scarce resources and many conflicts arise from this source. TECHNICAL FACTOR Groups in organization have different functions to perform and as such they develop their own norms and goals. Theoretically the achievement of these goals should achieve overall organizational goals but, often, in real life the reverse is true. Goals of one group are incompatible to the goals of another group. For example, a company which manufactures electric fans has a seasonal demand. Three departments marketing, production and finance—are involved. Since the demand for the product is seasonal, the marketing manager would like to have sufficient stock during the season. References Beaumont,P.B., Applied Microeconomics for Decision Making, Sage Publications, London,1993 Kaplan , P.L., Human Resources and Personnel Management, McGraw-Hill, New York,1997 Feldman, D.C., 1985 A taxonomy of intergroup conflict-resolution strategies University Associates:San Diego Taylor Sims, J. Robert Foster, ArchG. Woodside,(1997) Marketing Channels: Systems and Strategies Harper and Row: New York.