Managing in the Global Business Environment

GSN401 Managing in the Global Business Environment Major Assessment #2 Brisbane Graduate School of Business April 2011

Critical Essay
Critically discuss the statement “Decision making is a simple process, collect all the available data and make a decision that is in the best interest of the organisation!!”

GSN401 Assessment No. 2

The following critical discussion concludes that it is not appropriate to define “Decision making is a simple process, collect all the available data and make a decision that is in the best interest of the organisation!!” Decision making has far reaching implications and the situation must be fully understood and supported by a great deal of planning, organising, leading and controlling. Managers must consider the decision environment (level of risk), be able to think critically, understand responsibilities and accountabilities, consider implications, perform ethically, avoid past problems and to learn from successes. The discussion analyses the roles and functions of modern managers, focusing specifically on decision making processes. The discussion commences with a definition of decision making, followed by a description of the available modes, methods and approaches available for performing the decision process and framework to assist in identifying the optimal approach. The discussion then introduces the idea of scope of the decision situation and who in the organisation should be involved in the process. The focus then shifts to defining the individual steps required in the decision making process, exploring each of these steps and providing some examples of problems that have occurred. The concept of a simple [decision] process is defined, but promptly discounted as not being relevant to the topic. The Classical Management Functions are next discussed including relevance of the decision making process to these functions. The three levels of strategy are next introduced together with the responsibilities and

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