Decision Making in Management

Decision Making
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Table of contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. Discussion..............................................................................................................................3
2.1 A prevalent Organizational problem – A case study of British Airways.............................3
2.2 Theories related to the decision making...............................................................................5
2.3 Justification of the problem..................................................................................................7
2.4 Deconstructing the organizational problem of British Airlines with Rational Choice
Theory........................................................................................................................................8
2.5 Deconstructing the Organizational problem of British Airlines with Strategic Choice
Theory......................................................................................................................................10
2.6 Recommendations using Rational choice theory...............................................................11
2.7 Recommendations using Strategic choice theory..............................................................12
2.8 Critique of Rational Choice Theory...................................................................................13
2.9 Critique of Strategic Choice Theory..................................................................................14
3. Conclusion............................................................................................................................15
Reference list............................................................................................................................16
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1. Introduction
Decision making in management is considered as an act or process, through which selection
of the best alternative is made. Decision making in management takes place when there is
more than one alternative available for resolving the managerial issues. In other words, it
could be said that, the decision-making process is a problem-solving method, when it comes
to managerial duties and responsibilities. The approach of decision making is regarded as the
backbone of business management, as; this enables the managers to make right decisions at
right time. Managerial decision making enables the managers to achieve their objectives
(responsibilities) with optimal use of time and money and this process enables the employees
to optimally use the resources in order to attain the predetermined objectives. The managers
are responsible for motivating the employees of the organization in order to achieve the pre-
determined objectives. In that case, the decision-making process provides an operational
framework along with guidelines, to the employees at an operational level. The utilization of
the resources is considered as an important duty of managers of any organization. Decision-
making process enables the managers to properly utilize the resources like money, method,
man, material and others.
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2. Discussion
2.1 A prevalent Organizational problem – A case study of British Airways.
British Airways is ranked as the largest airline company of the United Kingdom. It serves the
customers of Europe and is considered as one of the leading airline companies. The economic
crisis of 2008 affected all the organizations of the UK, including the British Airways. Like
many other organizations of the United Kingdom, British Airways also faced recession and in
order to deal with that, the airline made some changes in the organization (Homsombat, Lei
and Fu, 2014). British Airways faced the problems related to the economic crisis and the
airline had organized change management in their business system. In the year of 2008,
British Airways made a profit of 875 million Euro profit, however; due to the economic
crisis, the business faced a recession and made a loss of 401 million Euro in the year of 2009
(Forsyth et al ., 2017). However, British Airways analysed the problem area and identified
the required changes. The main crisis of the business raised from the economic recession
followed by the competition from the low-cost airlines and the management problems. British
Airways adopted the Lewin’s change management model, wherein, there are three stages of
the change management processes namely - Unfreeze stage, Movement stage and Refreeze
stage (Betsch and Haberstroh, 2014).
The unfreezing stage determines the problems of the organization, it identifies the reasons
and their consequent significance to the organization. British Airways ineffectively managed
this stage. This could be said because, rather than managing the change systematically; it
started the process of change management by cutting the cost of the organization without
recognizing the problems (Kochenderfer, 2015). British Airways started the change
management process by reducing the number of employees along with the perks and benefits
of the existing employees. The change was not appropriately communicated within the
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