Decision-Making Processes in the Workplace

The article mentions Daniel Kahneman without explaining much about him. We will get to know him much better in the next section when we start to think about thinking.

Sometimes the most well-structured decision-making processes go awry, not because of the process itself, but because of the participants or the environment. This article shows us what can go wrong and how to get things back on track to meet
your TOR deliverables.

The article discusses obstacles to improved decision-making, including "cognitive limitations, heuristics and biases and individual inclinations". Heuristics are mental shortcuts individuals use to solve problems. These have great use, for instance, telling humans to run when they see a saber-toothed tiger without thinking too much about the decision. The choice of which cat to adopt from a shelter today may require less use of heuristics and more cognitive exercise.

Decision-Making Processes in the Workplace

The present study aims to connect more the I/O and the decision-making psychological domains, by showing how some common components across jobs interfere with decision-making and affecting performance. Two distinct constructs that can contribute to positive workplace performance have been considered: decision-making competency (DMCy) and decision environment management (DEM). Both factors are presumed to involve self-regulatory mechanisms connected to decision processes by influencing performance in relation to work environment conditions. In the framework of the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, the present study tested how such components as job demands, job resources and exhaustion can moderate decision-making processes and performance, where high resources are advantageous for decision-making processes and performance at work, while the same effect happens with low job demands and/or low exhaustion. In line with the formulated hypotheses, results confirm the relations between both the decision-making competences, performance (i.e., in-role and extra-role) and moderators considered. In particular, employees with low levels of DMCy show to be more sensitive to job demands toward in-role performance, whereas high DEM levels increase the sensitivity of employees toward job resources and exhaustion in relation to extra-role performance. These findings indicate that decision-making processes, as well as work environment conditions, are jointly related to employee functioning.


Source: Andrea Ceschi, Evangelia Demerouti, Riccardo Sartori and Joshua Weller, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00313/full
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