This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more

Management Notes Decision Making in Organisations Notes

Master Notes

Updated Master Notes Notes

Decision Making in Organisations Notes

Decision Making in Organisations

Approximately 42 pages

Extensive notes on all aspects of Decision Making in Organisation.

Includes useful case studies and examples, full sample essay answers and a master set of notes covering all topics on this module.

I received a 1st in this module based on these notes....

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Decision Making in Organisations Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

  • The knowing organisation is concerned with how organisations use knowledge (Choo, 2006).

  • Organisations use information in three strategic modes: to make sense of the environment, to create new knowledge, and to make decisions.

  • The Knowing organisation is well informed, mentally perceptive and enlightened, the information and knowledge that knowing organisations possess allow them to gain a competitive advantage which means they can “manoeuvre with intelligence, creativity and cunning” (Choo, 2006, P.ix).

  • “By sensing and understanding its environment the knowing organisation is able to anticipate and adapt early. By marshalling the skills and expertise of its members, the knowing organisation is able to learn and innovate. And finally by defining decision rules and values the knowing organisation is primed to take timely, purposive action” (Choo, 2006, P.ix).

  • Knowing organisations interpret information about the environment in order to construct meaning about what is happening to the organisation and what the organisation is doing. The knowing organisation creates new knowledge by converting and combining the expertise and know-how of their members in order to learn and innovate. The knowing organisation processes and analyses information in order to select and commit to appropriate courses of action (Choo, 2006).

  • Epistemology, “is the philosophical investigation of human knowledge” (O’Leary, 2013).

  • The knowing organisation is concerned “with the human processes through which information is transformed into insight, knowledge and action” (O’Leary, 2013).

  • “At the heart of the knowing organisation is its management of the information process that underpin sensemaking, knowledge building and decision making” (Choo, 2006, P.ix).

  • The knowing organisation framework suggests that people and groups work to accomplish three outcomes:

    • Create an identity and shared context for action and reflection

    • Develop new knowledge and new capabilities

    • Make decisions that commit resources and capabilities to purposeful action

  • The knowing organisation presents an information based view of organisations and a model of how organisations use information to “adapt to external change and foster internal growth” (Choo, 2006, P.1).

  • Knowledge is the result of collective action and reflection rather than simply the acquisition of things and objects that somehow contain knowledge.

  • Studies of organisations emphasis three arenas in which the creation and use of information play a strategic role;

  • Sense Making - use information to make sense of changes in their environment. A crucial task of management is to discern the significant changes in an organisations environment interpret their meaning and develop an appropriate response. The short term goal of sense making is to “construct shared understandings that allow the organisation to continue to act and function” (Choo, 2006, P.2). The long term goal is to ensure the organisations adapts and continues to thrive in a dynamic environment. During sense making the “principal information process is the interpretation of cues and messages about the environment (Choo, 2006, P.4).

    • Members choose what information is significant and should be attended to

    • Form possible explanations from past experience

    • Exchange and negotiate views in an effort to collectively construct and interpretation

  • Knowledge Building - to generate new knowledge. Knowledge is dispersed in the organisation in many different forms. Individuals develop informal knowledge which is derived from experience but cannot be expressed easily. This knowledge is a source of innovation and creativity so organisations are interested in it. There is also knowledge based on what the organisation believes about itself (identity, purpose) and about its capabilities and environments. “An organisation exists because of its abilities to integrate and channel these sets of knowledge into activities and outcomes that are meaningful and valuable”. An organisation can only grow if it is able to refresh its knowledge and extend its capabilities. During knowledge creation the “main information process is the conversion of knowledge” (Choo, 2006, P.4).

  • Decision Making - organisations search for and evaluate information to make decisions. In theory this choice is made rationally based on probably outcomes, organisational goals and feasible alternatives etc. In practice decision making is made more complex by differing interests of stakeholders. During decision making the “key information activity is the processing of information about available alternatives in order to select one that can achieve desired objectives” (Choo, 2006, P.4).

    • Members are guided by premises, rules and routines that structure their information search

    • Members evaluate alternatives

  • All three modes of information use (interpretations, conversion and processing) are dynamic, social processes that continuously constitute and reconstitute meaning, knowledge and action. Choo puts forward the premise that although the three arenas of information use are often treated separately they are in fact highly interconnected processes.

Information flows from the external environment Information about the organisations environment is sensed and meaning is constructed Provides the context for organisational activity and guides knowledge creation and decision making

  • Understanding and knowledge forms the basis for action and organisational action changes the environment and produces new streams of experience for the organisation to adapt to – the cycle of learning is continuous.

  • An effective knowing organisation can manage information resources and information practice to;

    • Sense and respond to a changing environment bit also shape and influence changes in the environment

    • Extend its base of knowledge and capabilities but also unlearn old assumptions

    • Make decisions that are sometimes rational and creative in order to meet complex challenges

  • Sense Making

...

Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Decision Making in Organisations Notes.