Managerial and Group Decision Making

Information

Arguably one of the most important actions performed by people in organizations is making decisions. Decision making takes place at many different levels of the organization and can have enormous implications for organizational functioning and performance. This course provides an in-depth view of several theoretical perspectives on decision making, at an individual and as well as at a group-level. In many business situations it is not possible to solve a decision making problem purely analytically. Therefore an initial part of the course is devoted to understanding the nature, causes, and implications of human decision making limitations. Second, because decision making often takes place in a social context, a part of the course is devoted to social decision-making and deals with how individuals coordinate their decisions in a social environment and how social influences affect decision making by individuals. Furthermore, decisions are often delegated to groups, because groups are supposed to possess more relevant resources like knowledge and perspectives. In reality, however, it is often the case that joint decision-making is suboptimal and actually obstructive. We will discuss the reasons why groups often do not live up to their potential, and how group decision making could be improved. Finally, while decision making is not always solely a cooperative activity, we will also take a look at less cooperative decision making, which is negotiation.