Reflective Writing Assignment (Doc)

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REFLECTIVE ACADEMIC
INTRODUCTION
A reflective summary is a brief written analysis of what an individual learnt and the activities
hey undertook during a certain event. This assignment represents a reflective summary on an
activity that our group undertook, which was on researching and making annotated bibliography
under the topic managing under uncertainty. This reflective summary will summarize all the
lessons the group learnt from the process, when, where and which activities were conducted
during the process. This means that a reflective summary indicates a brief indication of what
time, place an activity was performed. An annotated bibliography is a list of research conducted
on a specific topic. It is used to indicate the kind or type of research source, authors, limitations,
research findings and research methodologies used, conclusions, strengths and weaknesses
involved in the research. Therefore, the reflective summary will show a summary of what the
group members learnt from and experienced during the annotated bibliography research.
DISCUSSION
The act of decision making basically involves choosing an option from a list of suitable and/or
similar alternatives hoping for the choice to be the best and most effective (Al-Tarawneh, 2012).
There are theories that are used especially when analyzing and evaluating the decision making
processes used by groups during their research (Dathwade, 2016 and Milkman et al, 2009)). The
following are some of the theories that were used by the group when conducting the research on
annotated bibliographies on the topic “managing under uncertainty”.
Programmed and Non-Programmed Theory
Programmed theory is mostly used in situations or scenarios that are repetitive in nature. In this
theory, the decisions are made by use of traditional or reoccurring standard procedures or rather
procedures that are structured in nature(Ahmed et al, 2014). This means that when a group uses
this theory, the members must have experienced the same issue and situation previously and
therefore they decide to use the same technique they used before, which may become a routine.
In non-programmed theory, the decision makers often face new and completely different and
complex scenarios whenever they want to make a decision. This theory originated from

unstructured situations and ill-defined scenarios. The decision making process in this theory
involves more intense and effective brainstorming process simply because the problems or
situations at hand are usually unique and complex (Vuorinen, 2015. In most cases, the decision
makers use their own skills, judgment, intuition and creativity to implement this process.
During the research, this theory was certainly used by the group members to conduct the
annotated bibliography. It was easy for the members to research on the topic and complete the
whole research because they have certainly been faced by the same situation before. The
members had done various researches before on management and decision making process
which made it a routine for them, used the programmed decision making theory. The members
also implemented the non-programmed theory by using their own skills and knowledge conduct
the research on the annotated bibliography which was an activity they had never done before.
Structured and Unstructured Theories
Structured theory originates from a process whereby the decision makers have certain specific
decisions with specific and limited results (Fujita et al, 2014). They are mostly used for solving
structured problems which are said to be problems that are have a routine and repetitive in nature
and with standard solutions (Salter et al, 2015). The structured decision making theory involves a
process with a well-defined procedure or steps, a well-defined inputs system or resources and a
well-defined output or results.
Unstructured decision making theory is often used in situations that are completely unstructured
or rather definite. This theory is used mostly in solving problems that can be solved with any
kind and type of solution. The solutions involved in this theory are not definite, nor unique,
instead they are sometimes completely different from what is expected but still serve the purpose
(Van Knippenberg et al, 2015). This means that the decision makers that use this theory rarely
repeat decisions or solutions but rather use different solutions and processes even for the same
problems or scenarios.
During the research on conducting annotated bibliography on managing under uncertainty, we
also used this type of theories to complete the research. We used the unstructured theory to
review different types and kinds of sources that were written on the topic, e.g. journals, books,
research papers, academic articles to name a few. We used the sources to get any information on