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E. Frank Harrison: Professor of Management, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, USA
In discussing decision making, it is customary to focus on a decision-making process or the decision itself. Focusing for a moment on the decision itself, it is useful to note the variety of definitions for the term decision. One definition, for example, avers that "to make a decision means to make a judgment regarding what one ought to do in a certain situation after having deliberated on some alternative course of action"[1]. In a classic work on the science of management decision making, Herbert A. Simon treats it as a process synonymous with the whole process of management. In his words: "Decision making comprises three principal phases: finding occasions for making a decision; finding possible courses of action; and choosing among courses of action"[2].
Another definition views a decision as only one step in an intellectual process of differentiating among relevant alternatives. The decision itself is the point of selection and commitment when the decision maker chooses the preferred purpose, the most reasonable task statement, or the best course of action[3]. Still another definition notes that in making a decision the decision maker has several alternatives and the choice involves a comparison between these alternatives and an evaluation of their respective outcomes[4]. For purposes of this article, "a decision is defined as a moment, in an ongoing process of evaluating alternatives for meeting an objective, at which expectations about a particular course of action impel a decision maker to select that course of action most likely to result in attaining the objective"[5]. This definition is generally accepted in the literature of managerial decision making[6]. It also tends to confirm the basic thesis of this article: that managerial decision making takes place within a process composed of identifiable decision-making functions.
Decision making is the most significant activity engaged in by managers in all types of organizations and at any level. It is the one activity that most nearly epitomizes the behaviour of managers, and the one that clearly distinguishes managers from other occupations in the society. Drucker notes, for example, that "to make the important decision is the specific executive task. Only an executive makes such decisions"[7]. "Of all the managerial functions that...