Inter- and intra-organisational decision making

Organizations, whether large or small, public or private, old or new, make decisions on a daily basis. Organizations are comprised of individuals, and individuals can make around 35,000 decisions a day! What are some of the bases of individual decisions, how does this impact organisations and how does the wider societal context impact individual and organisation decisions? We may wish to believe that organisation decisions are well-planned and based on sufficient information. However, information is often incomplete and contested, and competing interests are involved, which make the decision process appear chaotic. The decision-makers, or individuals in organisations, also make these decisions based on their positionality, that is their social position and power. Decisions are also impacted by individual and societal biases which impact organisational decision-making

This course aims to help you realize that individual and organisational decisions whether internal or among them cannot be made purely with a rational problem-solving approach. The teaching team will introduce you to the theories that describe how decisions are made in practice, and why they are made this way. You will learn strategies to manage multiple actors in the decision process, while consider wider societal implications.