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.
Discussion
Two Different Processes, One Common Regulation System?
Relations found among these characteristics suggest the presence of two different constructs related to decision-making processes. It is interesting the fact that both of them show the presence of an insensitivity to moderators, but in an opposite way: where subjects with low levels of DMCy are sensitive to demands, high DEM levels seem to increase the sensitivity toward resources. DMCy seems to be a construct oriented to performance protection versus job demands, activating the regulation at the increasing of subjective effort. On the other side, DEM enhances the sensitivity toward resources in relation to extra-role performance and probably in relation to the motivational process proposed by the JD-R model. The motivational process assumes that job resources have motivational potential and lead to high work engagement and extra-role performance, limiting the development of job strain. This could explain why employees with high level of DEM perform better in absence of harsh work conditions, because they are more inclined to be negatively affected by exhaustion. On the other hand, only future research could confirm such result interpretation, because the present research lacking of the work engagement indicator did not allow to test such mediated relation.
Considering differences between the two decision-making constructs, a process that can explain their impact on performance relies on the self-regulatory mechanism. As seen, self-regulatory mechanisms have considerable impact on how well cognitive-processing systems work. The conception of ability with which employees approach complex activities are likely to have a significant impact on the self-regulatory influences that govern ongoing motivation and personal accomplishments in complex decision-making environments; which is also consistent with the definition of self-regulation of the DMC∖y approach. Self-regulation is based on generating, evaluating, selecting, and learning from goal-directed choices while simultaneously managing uncertainty, complications, time pressure, that may otherwise interfere with the goals attainment.