Group Decision-Making and Organizational Behavior

The fact that two individuals can be given the same information but interpret it differently shows how significant can the impact of influence on people’s decisions be. The decision-making process managed only by one’s personal opinion may be not constrained by other factors any rely solely on individual attitudes, education, culture, and other aspects. Overconfidence, mentioned before is another factor that impacts one’s perception and can change the final decision significantly.

Emotions can also have a major part in making decisions. People who follow not only their integral values but also incidental emotional changes may find themselves making completely different choices depending on the situation (Lerner, Li, Valdesolo, & Kassam, 2015).

Indeed, emotions can even shape some decisions and overpower the person’s perception as a result (George & Dane, 2016). Thus, one’s culture and level of knowledge connected to a problem may be overlooked because of emotions, similarly to overconfidence. Both these aspects limit the use of other arguments that may be considered in the decision-making process, including objective facts and thorough analyses.

In organizations, however, the process of making decisions is connected not to separate individuals but a certain entity such as a business. Therefore, personal perceptions are not treated as superior in this situation, while organization-driven choices have more value. In companies, managers and other workers need to make decisions based on the factors that will benefit the company and will support its goals and values (Pettigrew, 2014). For example, the mission of a company may dictate specific choices and prohibit others. In this case, a manager cannot simply make a decision based on perception and emotions, following the company’s guidelines instead. As has been noted, if an employee cannot agree with the company’s constraints, it can affect the working process in both positive and negative ways.

References

George, J. M., & Dane, E. (2016). Affect, emotion, and decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 136, 47-55.

Lerner, J. S., Li, Y., Valdesolo, P., & Kassam, K. S. (2015). Emotion and decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 799-823.

Pettigrew, A. M. (2014). The politics of organizational decision-making. New York, NY: Routledge.

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