Менеджеры и менеджмент (Executives and Management) - 28 стр.

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outcomes is unavailable. Ambiguity is what students would feel if an instructor created student groups, told
each group to write a paper, but gave the groups no topic, direction, or guidelines whatsoever. Ambiguity has
been called a "wicked" decision problem. Managers have a difficult time coming to grips with the issues.
Wicked problems are associated with manager conflicts over goals and decision alternatives, rapidly changing
circumstances, fuzzy information, and unclear linkages among decision elements. Fortunately, most decisions
are not characterized by ambiguity. But when they are, managers must conjure up goal and develop reasonable
scenarios for decision alternatives in the absence of information. When reports surfaced several years ago that
syringes and hypodermic needles had been found in cans of Pepsi, Pepsi-Cola executives faced ambiguity
squarely in the face, as described in the Focus on Decision Making box. Another example of ambiguity is in the
movie industry–one of the most difficult in which to make decisions because so many new movies are flops. At
Warner Brothers, studio executives build personal relationships with top stars, so they will want to do pictures
with the studio. Another approach is to provide stars with a percentage of gross revenues rather than a huge sal-
ary. For Batman, Jack Nicholson received up to 15 percent of the studio take and Michael Keaton, 8 percent.
The stars made millions because Batman was so successful, but they would have made little if it had failed.
Warner Brothers uses these approaches to reduce the financial risks of ambiguity when making new movies.
DECISION-MAKING MODELS
The approach managers use to make decisions usually falls into one of two types–the classical model or the
administrative model. The choice of model depends on the manager's personal preference, whether the decision
is programmed or nonprogrammed, and the extent to which the decision is characterized by risk, uncertainty, or
ambiguity.
CLASSICAL MODEL
The classical model
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of decision-making is based on economic assumptions This model has arisen within
the management literature because managers are expected to make decisions that are economically sensible and
in the organization's best economic interests. The assumptions underlying this model are as follows:
1. The decision maker operates to accomplish goals that are known and agreed upon. Problems are pre-
cisely formulated and denned.
2. The decision maker strives for conditions of certainty, gathering complete information. All alternatives
and the potential results of each are calculated.
3. Criteria for evaluating alternatives are known. The decision maker selects the alternative that will
maximize the economic return to the organization.
4. The decision maker is rational and uses logic to assign values, order preferences, evaluate alternatives,
and make the decision that will maximize the attainment of organizational goals.
The classical model of decision-making is considered to be normative
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, which means it defines how a de-
cision maker should make decisions. It does not describe how managers actually make decisions so much as it
provides guidelines on how to reach an ideal outcome for the organization. The value of the classical model has
been its ability to help decision makers be more rational. For example, many senior managers rely solely on in-
tuition and personal preferences for making decisions. In recent years, the classical approach has been given
wider application because of the growth of quantitative decision techniques that use computers. Quantitative
techniques (discussed in detail in the appendix) include such things as decision trees, payoff matrices, break-
even analysis, linear programming, forecasting, and operations research models. The use of computerized in-
formation systems and databases has increased the power of the classical approach.
In many respects, the classical model represents an "ideal" model of decision-making that is often unattain-
able by real people in real organizations. It is most valuable when applied to programmed decisions and to deci-
sions characterized by certainty or risk, because relevant information is available and probabilities can be calcu-
lated. One example of the classical approach is the model developed by a Canadian organization for scheduling
ambulance services.
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Classical model A decision-making model based on the assumption that managers should make logical decisions that will be in the organiza-
tion's best economic interests.
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Normative An approach that defines how a decision maker should make decisions and provides guidelines for reaching an ideal outcome for
the organization.

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