Supporting  &   Related   Pages:

• Complexity
• Decision-Making Costs & Spatial Organization
• Flexibility
• Musts & Wants
• "On Location"
• Site Selection
• Uncertainty

Stages & Phases	The Rational-Deductive Model	Adaptive & Behavioral Propositions	The Consulting Approach (practical/prescriptive)
Recognition of Problems or Opportunity: Activating the Decision Process	The organization and its environment Identify Resources and Constraints	Motivation / Stress / Strain Conversion (Brown & Moore)	Interim action Adaptive action Contemplation of corrective action (K&T, p.175) Concept Development; Identify the decision-making process and decision makers; Develop preliminary consulting schedule & budget
Establish Objectives (K&T, p.181)	Already at the beginning of the decision process, the decision maker has a utility function including a preference ordering that ranks all sets of consequences from the most to the least preferred.		Needs Assessment; Review alternatives (e.g. peers', competitors' solutions)
Classifying Objectives according to importance	Prerequisites, minimum requirements;		Musts & Wants, Scoring scales; (K&T, p.183)
Investigation & Search: Developing Alternatives from which to choose	In the extreme, the decision maker has already laid out all alternatives from which to select her action.... More process oriented models require specifications which are based on a variety of considerations, including: Information search continues until optimal amount of information has been found Is there a finite or infinite horizon to this search? Is the decision maker risk-neutral, risk-loving or risk-adverse? Search & Investigation can be costly (Aharoni, p.78) Expected value of perfect information (upper limit to search costs)	Sequential attention to goals Quasi resolution of conflicts (conflicts between goals may not be resolved: somebody wins, someone is paid off, concensus is not reached, inconsistencies remain) Goal Levels: (Goals are a series of independent aspiration-level constraints (e.g. imposed by the members of the organizational coalition) Ideal, perfect score Past achievement(s) Aspiration level: level which the actor expects to achieve; itself based on (some weighted function of): past goals past performance performance of other, comparable organizations expectations of stakeholders and Wall Street Goals are adapted over time Uncertainty avoidance Avoid the requirement of correctly anticipating the future by adopting strategies with short-term feedback and small steps Try to influence/internalize/ negotiate with the environment. Lobby for "industry standards", political stability etc. Information search to continue until sufficient amount of satisfactory information has been found to activate next stage of decision process (G&S, p.33); Cyert & March: Problemistic Search (p.120) Search is motivated Search is simple-minded Search is biased Adaptation of attention rules (CM, 123) Cognitive maps; Space perception,	Market analysis;
Comparing Alternatives with Objectives			Adverse Consequences Worksheet (K&T, p.203)
Select the best Alternative as a Tentative Decision	Decision maker selects that alternative which leads to the preferred consequences.		Alternative that receives the highest weighted score (K&T, p.189); feedback collected from focus groups (testers)
Anticipate unintended, adverse consequences	Evaluation; seek additional information and advice	Trial baloon, devil's advocate, any change causes problems somewhere;	Develop contingency actions to be able to counter unintended consequences (K&T,p.206)
Control effects of final decisions: Prevention of hostile consequences & prepare for follow-up (e.g. build-in flexibility)		Environment deteriorates; decision is postponed; decision maker procratinates or backtracks to interim adaptation or to earlier decision stage;

Internet Sites: 

Decision Making Viewed as a Process

The Environment of a Decision (Ebert & Mitchell, Ch.3)

Evaluation of Goals

Performance Unsatisfactory

Information Processes: Search for better Alternative

Judgmental Inferences (Ebert & Mitchell, Ch.6)

Reconsideration of Search Rules

Step 1

• Identify Needs
• Compare actual performance with expected standards (K&T, p.44)
• A "problem is a deviation from a standard of performance" (p.44)
• How to specify a problem (Kepner Tregoe, Ch.5)

Step 2 Develop Objectives (K&T, p.48)

Step 3 Identify Resources and Constraints

Step 4 Identify Potential Options/Alternatives

• Information Processes [Ebert, pp.67ff.]
  • Acquisition: Search
    • Theories of Search Behavior
      • Cyert & March
        • Search is motivated
        • Search is simple-minded
        • Search is biased
      • Sequential Search or "Parallel Process"? [Ebert, p.94]
      • Search Directions & Search Regions (p.95)
    `
  • Processing
  • Output

Step 5 Establish and Apply Screening Criteria

Step 6 Develop Alternatives (K&T, p.48)

Step 7 Evaluate Alternatives (K&T, p.49)

Step 8 Select

• Choice of .. tentative (K&T, p.49)
• Tentive choice explore for adverse consequences (K&T, p.49)

Step 9 Implement

Step 10 Monitor and Adapt

Internet:

• The Site Selection Process for Party Conventions

  Only about 30 American cities have the facilities, infrastructure and wherewithall to host one of the major party's quadrennial nominating conventions. For both the Democrats and the Republicans, the process of selecting the convention site takes almost a year...

• Revenue Development in Commercial Real Estate [three-step process] [www.mclaughlin-ventures.com/]

• Location Decision Process [Wadley - Donovan] [ Decision Process Chart]

Literature:

Aguilar, Francis Joseph. Scanning the Business Environment. N.Y.: McMillan 1967.

Aharoni, Yair. The Foreign Investment Decision Process. Boston, 1966.

BROWN,-LAWRENCE-A.; PHILLIBER,-SUSAN-G.; MALECKI,-EDWARD-J.; WALBY,-KAREN, Information source usage in the migration decision ( Ohio). Socio-Economic-Planning-Sciences. 1981. 15(6), pp 321-330, 4 tables, 18 refs.

Braybrooke, David and Charles E. Lindblom. A Strategy of Decision: Policy Evaluation as a Social Process. The Free Press, 1963/1970.

Cooper, Malcolm J.M., The Industrial Location Decision Making Process. University of Birmingham: Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, 1975.

Cyert, Richard & James March. Behavioral Theory of the Firm. 1963.

Ebert, Ronald and Terence R. Mitchell, Organizational Decision Processes: Concepts and Analysis. N.Y.: Crane, Russak & Co., Inc., 1975.

Golledge, R.G. & R.J. Stimson, Spatial Behavior: A Geographic Perspective, Guilford, 1997. [Ch.2: "Decision Making and Choice Behaviors", pp.31ff.]

Hayter, Roger. The Dynamics of Industrial Location. 1997, pp.146-54.

Kepner, Charles H. and Benjamin B. Tregoe, The Rational Manager, 2nd ed., Princeton, 1976.

McFadden, Daniel, "Economic Choices," American Economic Review 91(3), June 2001, 351-78.

McCLYMONT, D., Decision-making process of commercial farmers in Zimbabwe. Agricultural Administration. 1984. 17(3), pp 149-162, 2 figs, 6 refs.

March, James G. and H.O.Simon, Organizations, NY: Wiley, 1958.

Ohlmer, B.; Olson, K.; Brehmer, B. Understanding farmers' decision making processes and improving managerial assistance. Agricultural-Economics. 1998; 18(3): 273-290

Stigler, George J., "The Economics of Information," Journ of Political Economy, 69, 1961, 213-25.