Decision Making Theory Global Market Place

Question: Discuss about theDecision Making Theoryfor Global Market Place. Answer: Introduction As a leader, one must be able to make critical decisions as all leaders are confronted with challenging situations. Good leaders try to make decisions that eventually bring a positive impact not only to the organizations but also to the stakeholders and employees. The present global environment is regarded as highly volatile and organizational leaders meet and confront very complex challenges. Middle East Battery Company operates in a global market. For a manager, the key decisions made have a direct impact on how the company solves its internal and external problems, and how it ultimately accomplishes its mission and objectives. Middle East Battery Company is based in Saudi Arabia. It manufactures automotive sealed maintenance free batteries. The batteries are used in Korean, American, European and Japanese vehicle models. It offers industrial and marine heavy duty batteries too. In consideration to outsource the division of the company to another country, critical thinking and soun d decision making is a crucial need for the manager (Aird and Sappenfield, 2009). This will ensure positive results for the organization, stakeholders and the employees. Steps that Should be Undertaken in Evaluation of the Decision According to Angelone, Levin and Simons (2003), the first step involves identification of an opportunity or a problem. The main drive to outsource is either to solve a problem or utilize an opportunity an opportunity. Recognize the problem or identify the opportunities that may be worthwhile. Evaluate whether the problem or opportunity have an impact to the customer. It should be able to increase focus on the revenue generating activities. Secondly, there is need for information collection. Gather full information on what is relevant to the decision. One must know what is required before a decision is made or consider factors that will help in making the right decision (Choi, Laibson, Madrian and Metrick, 2003). The manager needs to get access to the latest technology and also access experts in the different types of vehicles that use the battery. The third step involves situation analysis. In this case, the managers considers if there may be an alternative course of action and all the possible different data interpretations (Curhan, Neale and Ross, 2004) The third step is followed by developing options. This step involves generating several possible options. One needs to be creative and remain positive too. In this case, "what if" questions regarding the problems or opportunities are needs to be asked here. Outline the desired outcome of this situation. The next step involves evaluating alternatives. Outline the criteria for evaluation. Look into the feasibility, acceptability and desirability of the situation. Evaluate the alternative that best achieves the objectives. This step is then followed by selecting a preferred alternative. The provisional preferred alternative should be explored for future possible adverse consequences. Identify the problems the alternative preference might create. Put into consideration the risks of making the decision. Lastly, the manager is required to act on the decision. For implementation, a plan is put in place (Ghodeswar and Vaidyanathan, 2008). Allocate resources for implementation. It's important to see that the decision is accepted and supported by colleagues. See to it that they ate committed into making it work. Prescriptive and Descriptive Decision Making Prescriptive decision making involves giving advice on how to make the best decisions given a set of uncertain beliefs and values. It simply means how things should be done. While descriptive decision making theory entails analyzing how existing or possibly irrational agents actually make decisions. In the case of the Middle East Battery Company, the manager must put into account the unpredictable environment. The manager needs to focus on strategy formulation process. He is also to make sure the process put in place is the correct one. For these reasons, a thorough research on the advantages and the disadvantages is carried out. He seeks to formulate a strategy that enhances performance (Kakumanu and Portanova, 2006). The company is already in function but the decision is trying to improve the functioning matters. The manager wants the company to survive and therefor take into consideration the experiences that could help the business succeed better. The decisions required here involve improving on the performance of the company like the marketing of the batteries, cost reduction in production, and more quality automotive batteries. All these make it more convenient for the perspective decision making theory. Critical Thinking Skills Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally about one's dos and don'ts and one's beliefs. It's simply engaging into independent and creative thinking. An individual in possession of the critical thinking skills is able to understand logical connections between ideas, solve problems systematically, identify and evaluate arguments and reflect on the justification of one's own beliefs and values. In deciding on the outsourcing of the Middle East Battery company into another country the manager should possess various critical thinking skills. These are highlighted below. Analytical Skills According to Saxena and Bharadwaj (2009), a good manager ought to be able to separate problems from opportunities and discover their functional nature and relationships. For example the relationship between the country that outsourcing needs to be done to and the market conditions of the automotive maintenance free batteries for instance the number of industries that uses machinery that require heavy duty batteries. Information Seeking He should be in a position to search for evidence, facts or knowledge by identifying the relevant sources and gathering objectives and current data from the sources. Example saying Kenya uses vehicle models from Japan or Europe should be able to be proven. Logical Reasoning As mentioned by Mahmoodzadeh, Jalalinia and Yazdi, (2009), the manager should be in a position to use his evidence and findings to deduce conclusions. For instance Asia is a better choice compared to Europe because it has more number of industries and more vehicles in use. Predictions A manager is required to envision a plan and its consequences. This largely applies when selecting alternative preferences. He must be able to explore the future possibilities and identify advantages and disadvantages that would accompany these choices. Conclusion Leadership and critical thinking goes hand in hand. A leader must be able to make complex decisions depending on the situation at hand. Decision making is a process and therefore involves steps. The decisions made should not be manager centered but rather should be beneficial to the organization, stakeholders and customers. A good manager ought to have various critical thinking skills. In outsourcing the Middle East Battery company, problems and opportunities associated with it like cost effectiveness and the acceptability by the stakeholders and its effect to both customers and employees must be put into consideration. Most importantly the decision should result into betterment of the company. References Aird, C. and Sappenfield, D (2009) IT the Enabler of Global Sourcing. Financial Executive; 251(5), pp. 62-63. Angelone, L., Levin, D. and Simons, D. (2003) The relationship between change, detection, and recognition of centrally attended objects in motion pictures. Perception, 32(8), pp. 947962. Choi, J., Laibson, D., Madrian, B. C. and Metrick, A. (2003) Active decisions: A natural experiment in savings. Mimeo: Harvard University Press. Curhan, J. R., Neale, M. A. and Ross, L. (2004) Dynamic valuation: Preference change in the context of active face-to-face negotiations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40(1), pp. 142151. Ghodeswar, B. and Vaidyanathan, J (2008) Business process outsourcing: an approach to gain access to world-class capabilities, Business Process Management Journal, 4(1), pp. 11-13. Kakumanu, P. and Portanova, A (2006) Outsourcing: Its Benefits, Drawbacks and Other Related Issues. Journal of American Academy of Business, 9(2), pp. 9-10. Mahmoodzadeh, E., Jalalinia, S. and Yazdi, F. (2009) A business process outsourcing framework based on business process management and knowledge management. Business Process Management Journal, 15(6), pp. 845-864. Saxena, C. and Bharadwaj, S. (2009) Managing Business process through outsourcing: A strategic partnering perspective. Business Process Management Journal, 15(5), pp. 687-715.