Business

Common and Uncommon Sense in Managerial Decision Making Under Task Uncertainty

Published on by Jared Padgett

Dinur, A. R., (2011). Common and uncommon sense in managerial decision making under task uncertainty. Management Decision, 49(5), 694-709. doi: 10.1108/00251741111130797

The premise of the article is an exploration of sense making from both a common and uncommon sense approach . Common sense, by most of the provided examples, was only possible in an area of no prior training or experience . Common sense is considered instinctual. This goes against common practice of hiring managers based on experience.

Once a reasonable definition of common sense is established, the author defines two new concepts, Managerial Common Sense (MCS) and Managerial Uncommon Sense (MUS). Basically, managers who are experienced in business are perfectly capable of MCS. They have seen a lot, and can make decisions from personal experience . When a situation comes up where the manager has no experience, a decision could result in a system failure, which is described as mechanistic by the author. Some situations call for depending on the expertise of others. This is considered uncommon, and is tied to the MUS concept.

Management Indecision

Published on by Jared Padgett

Brooks, Margaret E. (2011). Management indecision. Management Decision, 49(5), 683-693. doi: 10.1108/00251741111130788

This article focuses on indecision, which can lead to error. The author indicates there is a lot more research on making decisions than on the failure to make a decision.

Society has convinced many people that it is better to choose not to act and suffer the consequences rather than act incorrectly and suffer similar consequences .

The consequences for not making a decision often outweigh the consequences of making a bad decision, yet the fear of making a bad decision ultimately proves to be a more powerful motivator. Among the solutions is a punishment and reward system designed to reward decision-making and punish indecisiveness.

Decision making is integral to the practice of High Reliability Organizations (HRO). Understanding the causes of indecision among managers will be helpful when determining how to best implement HRO concepts in a new environment. Changing an organization’s culture from indecisive to decisive may help prevent costly errors.