In any organization, decisions must be made every day. Let’s consider a grocery store, as an example. Someone needs to decide how many employees need to be on duty, and what tasks they need to perform (who should be working the check-out lines and self-checkout lines, who should be re-stocking shelves, who should be preparing fresh baked goods, etc.). Decisions need to be made about inventory control issues (e.g., what items need to be re- ordered, and how many of each), pricing issues (e.g., what items to place on sale, how much to reduce their prices), and so on. In addition to the normal, daily decisions, there are many others that occur less frequently (e.g., whether or not to hire another employee, and if so, whom), and some that occur quite infrequently (e.g., whether or not to open another store in another location). While decision-making environments vary substantially, they typically have one thing in common. More specifically, ready access to good data, information and (in more complex environments) knowledge may lead to better (more efficient and effective) decision making.
There are different views of how decision making does (and should) occur within organizations. We start with a quick overview of the rational perspective, and then briefly discuss alternative views.
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