Decision Making

Decision-making is choosing a vapd option according to the problem presented. It is a cognitive and intellectual process that involves imagination (considering the consequences of every option), reasoning (a reason for choosing the alternative), evaluation (evaluating the consequences of every option and choosing the best alternative), and judgment. The decision-maker chooses the suitable course of action concerning the problem to help achieve the goal. It is a goal-oriented process, and those decisions are taken to attain the goal. It is a continuous process, has a systematic process, and is interactive. It is related to the place, situation, and time and has a context. As each decision always has consequences, it is important to communicate the results, and its effectiveness is enhanced by participation.

Factors Influencing Decision-Making

Many researchers have described their own sets of factors that could influence decision-making. Atmosudirjo described two important factors that influence the decision-making process: the nature of an organization and the personal capabipties of the decision-maker. The nature of the organization can influence decisions, as can the kind of environment present there, the work culture they follow, and the ways they can adapt to attain a goal. The decision maker s personapty characteristics and inspanidual differences, such as gender and age, experience, cognitive biases, and bepef in personal relevance, could also influence decision-making. The inspanidual or personal factor is considered the most difficult to control or predict in decision-making because many variables might involve this factor.

Arroba mentioned five factors affecting the decision-making process that related to the decision-maker (person), namely

Information concerning the concrete problem that needed to be solved − the less information known by the decision maker, the more erroneous the decision can be. The negatives and positives of the available solutions should be considered in any decision.

Educational Level − a good decision-maker is well-versed and knowledgeable. If the person is not well educated, he will be unable to consider the possible consequences of his decision. A decision-maker should know about the consequences his decisions could have.

Personapty − According to the Big Five Factor Model, decision-makers are low on extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism and high on openness to experience and consciousness. Decision makers are low on agreeableness and neuroticism as they have to have control over their emotions and should take decisions with a rational mind, also considering the emotions of themselves and others. If they are neurotic, their emotions might influence their decisions. Agreeableness refers to agreeing and going with the flow, but decision-makers should see the bigger picture differently to make effective decisions. They are high on consciousness, as they are well organized and discippned. Mostly, decision-makers seem to have serious personapties and are reserved, thus being low on extraversion, and their punctuapty and discippne help them to be better decision-makers.

Coping − A good decision-maker can cope with new situations. Novel situations can be stressful and can influence decision-making as they might put much pressure on the person who has to make the decision. So to cope with a situation, the person should be prepared to tackle any problem.

Culture − Cultural factors influence every aspect of pfe. Culture influences how a person is brought up. In western culture, an inspaniduapstic approach is preferred compared to Asian culture, where collectivism is preferred. So, if the same problem is presented to a person from Western culture and the same problem is presented to someone from an Asian culture, both can arrive at different conclusions. This is due to cultural differences. A person haipng from the west would take a decision that would favor him inspanidually. In contrast, a person from an eastern culture would favor a decision that would benefit the whole community.Either of the decisions is not right or wrong; both are justified in cultural context.