Issues in Public Administration MPA 509

1. Issues in Public AdministrationMPA 509 Decision Making in Governance

2. Agenda for Today • What are Organizations and Who are Managers? • What is Decision Making? • Rationality in Organizations • Rational Decision Making Models • How Administrators Think • Programmed Decision Making • Non-programmed Decision Making • Leaders Profile • Emergent Problems • A Paradigm for Decision Making • Quote of the Day

3. Organizations • Organizations are systems • Involve people, structure and a common purpose • Have limited resources • Need to perform a series of functions to meet its objectives

4. Decision Making • Decision Making is at the heart of organizational effectiveness, climate, and health. • Two dominant issues affect how decisions are made in organizations; • Stability (application of existing practices and maintenance of existing performance levels) • Change (environmental demands for quick response and emerging problems that are ambiguous) • Participative decision making structures are required to effectively manage change.

5. Managers • Managers are responsible for effective and efficient execution of these organizational functions. • A typical manager performs a number of functions that are categorized as: • Interpersonal • Informational • Decisional One of the key traits that distinguish managers from operatives is the ability to make independent decisions.

6. Decision Making • Daniel Griffith’s Theory of Leadership is About Decision Making • Administration is a process of directing and controlling life in a social organization. • The specific function of administration is to develop and regulate the decision making process in the most effective manner.

7. Griffith (continued) • Griffith proposed that: • An individual's rank equals his or her degree of control of the decision-making process. • Effectiveness of the leader is inversely proportional to the number of decisions made personally. • The major differences between types of organizations are related to differences in the decision-making process.

8. Decision-Making: Concept - Means by which to: - Administer - Plan - Organize - Lead - Control

9. Problem Definition Problem is a discrepancy (difference) between an existing and a desired state. Example: “The manager has resigned, and we need another manager” Here the phrase “manager has resigned” reflects the current state while “need another manager” represents a desired state.

10. Individual v. Organizational Decision Making • What is meant by the expectation that administrators should be “decisive”? • How is this different from “organizational decisions”? • It is the responsibility of administrators to establish decision-making processes that establish a positive culture.

11. Rationality in Decision Making • Herbert Simon’s three phases of decision making: • Intelligence activity, Design activity, Choice activity • Peter Drucker’s rational steps in decision making: • Define the Problem • Analyze the Problem • Develop Alternative Solutions • Decide on the Best Solution • Convert decisions into Effective Actions

12. Rational Decision-Making Models • Some models add a “feedback loop” to make successively better decisions eventually reaching “optimal” decisions. • We must recognize that we generally make decisions that are called “satisfying”, that is, they are a solution that is satisfactory, but not necessarily the optimal solution. Why?

13. Limits on Rationality in Decision Making Vroom developed a taxonomy of five leadership styles based on decision making processes: • Autocratic Process: • Leaders makes decision with information available. • Leader gets information from followers (may not tell them the problem) and then makes decision. • Consultative Process: • Leader shares problem with individuals, gets suggestions, then makes decision. • Leader shares problem with the group and then makes decision. • Group Process: • Leaders facilitates a group decision based on consensus. The leader avoids giving his/her opinion, but lets the group decide.

14. Vroom (continued) • Analysis of the situation depends on answers to 7 questions: • Does the problem possess a quality requirement? • Does the leaders have sufficient information to make a good decision? • Is the problem structured? • Is it necessary for others to accept the decision in order for it to be implemented?’ • If the leaders makes the decision alone, how certain is it that others will accept it? • Do others share the organizational goals that will be attained by solving this problem? • Are the preferred solutions to the problem likely to create conflict among others in the group?

15. Rational/Bounded Rational So Rational and Bounded Rational Models are cognitive models that describe how managers make rational decisions

16. The Rational Model 1. Define and diagnose the problem 2. Set goals 7. Follow up and control External and internal Environ. forces 3. Search for alternative solutions 6.Implement the solution selected 5. Choose among alternative solutions 4. Compare and evaluate solution

17. Rational Model: Assumptions • Clear and unambiguous problem • Single, well-defined goal • All alternatives are known • Clear preferences (ranking criteria) • Constant/stable preferences • No time or cost constraints • Decision will maximize payoff

18. Intuition • Involves gut feeling • May also have rational basis • The “feeling” arises from past experience and knowledge • Involves quicker response • Does not involve systematic analysis

19. The Nature of Managerial and Administrative Work Henry Mintzberg’s five propositions: • Administrators do a great deal of work, and do it at an unrelenting pace. • Administrators devote brief periods to many decisions that tend to be specific, well defined issues. • Administrators prefer to deal with active problems that are well defined and non-routine. • Administrators prefer verbal communications. • Administrators maintain working relationships with three principal groups: superiors, subordinates, and outsiders.

20. Mintzberg (continued) • The work of administrators is taxing. He states: “The quantity of work to be done . . .during the day is substantial and the pace is unrelenting.” • An “unrelenting pace” is not an unvarying pace, but that there is always more work to do, and that administrators seldom stop thinking about their work. • Mintzberg’s work has been confirmed in studies done with school administrators.

21. How Administrators Think • Do administrators apply rational (linear) decision making principles to decision making, and are they reflective about the decisions they make? • Perhaps, but Karl Weick believes that administrators’ thinking is woven into, and simultaneously occurs with, action. • Schön agrees, believing that decision making is an art, or trained intuition. That is, one learns through education and experience to see a complex system and to view a decision holistically. • Probable connection to left brain thinking (rational, logical, analytical) and right brain thinking (intuitive, holistic, non-logical)

22. Programmed Decisions • A decision that is repetitive and routine • A definite method for its solution can be established • Does not have to be treated a new each time it occurs • Procedures are often already laid out • Examples: pricing standard customer orders, determining billing dates, recording office supplies etc.

23. Non-programmed Decisions • Are “tough” decisions that involve risk and uncertainty and • call for entrepreneurial abilities • Such decisions draw heavily on the analytical abilities of the manager • Examples: Moving into a new market, investing in a new unproven technology, changing strategic direction

24. Leaders Profile - Ten Variables: i) Dependence on authority ii) Use of power and fear iii) Dominates iv) Dependence on personal expertness v) Personal Likeableness vi) Exhibition of sincere interest vii) Development of persons viii) Inspiration for the best results ix) Weld members into a team x) Sharing of ends and goals

25. Who Should Participate? • Edwin Bridges suggests we involve others in decisions when two tests are met: • Test of Relevance--when they have an important personal stake in the problem and their interest is high. • Test of Expertise–they can contribute competently to the solution. • We add a third test: • Test of Jurisdiction—if a problem is in their jurisdiction or within their work domain, allow participation, but if not, don’t allow them to decide as it may lead to frustration.

26. Team Administration • Five techniques of team administration: • Discussion • Information seeking • Democratic-centralist • Parliamentarian • Participant-determining • Participation, however, requires a high level of skills, in particular training in the group process.

27. A Paradigm for Decision Making • Using the four typical steps in the rational model of decision making, the administrator can choose to include others in any or all of the steps: • Defining the problem • Identifying possible alternative solutions • Predicting the consequences of each alternative • Choosing the alternative to follow • In other words, the administrator can make the decision alone, use their input to make the decision, or make a group decision.