decision makin
... of skills required to fill certain jobs, the reorder point for manufacturing inventory, exception reporting for expenditures 10 percent or more over budget, and selection of rules, subordinates and others can make the decision, freeing managers for other tasks. Non-programmed decision are made in response to situations that are unique, are poorly defined and largely unstructured, and have important consequences for the organisation. Many non-programmed decisions involve strategic planning, because uncertainty is great and decisions are complex. Decisions to build a new factory, develop a new product or service, enter a new geographical market, or relocate headquarters to another city are all non-programmed decisions. Research from Henry Goldblatt, [Fortune 1998, 79], when AT&T’s new CEO C. Michael Armstrong decided to sell two unrelated business units and buy Teleport Communications, a local phone company, he made a non-programmed decision. Armstrong and other top managers had to analyse complex problems, evaluate alternatives, and make a choice about how to revive the struggling company. Armstrong’s decisions have improved both employee morale and AT&T’s flagging stock price. There are three conditions that managers may face as they make decisions: certainty, risk and uncertainty. In the perfect world, managers would have all the information necessary for making decision. In reality, however, some things are unknowable. Thus, some decisions will fail to solve the program or attain the desired outcome. Managers try to obtain inf...