5. Decision-Making Approach
a) What are the key characteristics of the approach?
Here the focus of attention is on managerial decision-making and how organisations process and use information in making decisions.
Successful management lies in responding to internal and external change. This involves the clarification of objectives, the specification of problems, and the search for and implementation of solutions. The organisation is seen as an information-processing network with numerous decision points. An understanding of how decisions are made helps in understanding behaviour in the organisation.
b) Does the approach work in practice - if not, why not?
Whether or not the approach works on practice is hard to say, but managers nowadays are more concerned with avoiding uncertainties than with the prediction of uncertainties
c) How did the approach help develop management thinking?
Decision-making writers seek to explain the mechanisms by which conflict is resolved and choices are made.
d) Is the approach still relevant today?
This approach is advised to be used by all managers and to all managers as it is important to make decisions about uncertainties as they come.
e) Is the approach only workable in a particular social, cultural and economic context?
The scope of the decision-making approach, however, is wide, and it is possible to identify contributions from engineers, mathematicians and operational research specialists in addition to the work of economists, psychologists and writers on management and organisation.
6. Social Action Approach
a) What are the key characteristics of the approach?
Social action writers attempt to view the organisation from the standpoint of individual members (actors) who will each have their own goals, and interpretation of their work situation in terms of the satisfaction sought and the meaning that work has for them. The goals of the individual, and the means selected and actions taken to achieve these goals, are affected by the individual’s perception of the situation. Social action looks to the individual’s own definition of the situation as a basis for explaining behaviour. Conflict of interests is seen as normal behaviour and part of organisational life.
b) Does the approach work in practice - if not, why not?
A main thrust of social action is the criticism of earlier approaches to organisation and management, and of what is claimed to be their failure to provide a satisfactory basis for the explanation or prediction of individual behaviour. For example, criticism is directed at approaches which focused on the goals and needs of the organisation, rather than on considerations of the effectiveness of an organisation in meeting the needs of its individual members.
c) How did the approach help develop management thinking?
The social action approach helped to identify the fact that organisations can have internal conflicts of interests and that it is important to see the need of each individual members of an organisation.
d) Is the approach still relevant today?
We can see the conflict of interests when taking a close look at big corporations and their shareholders-manager issue. When shareholders are concerned with big dividend payouts, whilst managers are more concerned with investing organisation's profits in further growth and improving worker environment.
e) Is the approach only workable in a particular social, cultural and economic context?
This approach is mainly concerned with private organisations/profit oriented businesses.