Analysis of Critical Thinking and Managerial Decision Making

This report offers a critical analysis of the article "Beyond critical thinking and decision making: Teaching business students how to think." It explores the article's introduction, topic, identified gaps, research methods, findings, and implications for management practice. The report highlights the importance of critical thinking and decision-making skills for business students and managers, emphasizing the limitations of traditional approaches and the need for comprehensive thinking skills programs. The analysis includes an evaluation of the article's credibility and effectiveness, along with a discussion of qualitative research methods and their application in the study. The report concludes with a summary of key findings and recommendations for enhancing critical thinking in business education and practice, stressing the significance of problem-solving, negotiation, and decision-making processes in the context of effective management.

Running head: How to think 1
Critical Thinking and Managerial Decision Making

How to think 2
Contents
Topic of the article: “Beyond critical thinking and decision making: Teaching business students how to
think.”..........................................................................................................................................................3
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
About the topic of the article.......................................................................................................................4
Identified gap in the article..........................................................................................................................5
The way of research conducted...................................................................................................................6
Findings.......................................................................................................................................................7
The implications of the article for management practice.............................................................................7
Evaluation of the article's effectiveness and credibility...............................................................................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10

How to think 3
Topic of the article: “Beyond critical thinking and decision making: Teaching business
students how to think.”
Introduction
This assessment will critically analyze the selected article “Beyond critical thinking and decision
making: Teaching business students how to think.” The discussion will be made about the article
which will describe that what has been defined within the article. The gap in the literature or
some innovative developments that requires to be explained will be mentioned in this
assignment. There are various ways of conducting the research but the specific way of conducted
research for this article will be reviewed. The findings will be critically evaluated in this
assignment regarding the topic of the article. The implications will be represented of the article
for management practice. At last, the overall evaluation of the article will be described to show
the credibility and the effectiveness.

How to think 4
About the topic of the article
It has been found that the article is discussing about the issues of programmatic and pedagogical
advice pertaining to be the teaching of thinking skills in business schools. The main aim of this
article is to enhance the awareness about how to think to the business student. The main purpose
of this article is to build awareness of the requirement to teach business students how to think.
The limitations of the decision making approach and the critical thinking approach in the context
of managerial thinking has been demonstrated. The critical thinking in different way has been
discussed and the final aim of this article to present the thinking skills programs for the student
of business that acquire the essential completeness and depth of the content. It has been found
that the critical thinking has two kinds such as cognitive and attitudinal dimensions (Lee, D. S.,
Abdullah, Subramanian, Bachmann & Ong, 2017). Cognitive thinking refers that one should
have knowledge about the way of critically thinking while attitudinal dimensions show that one
must be biased to do so an suitable occasion (Hamid, 2016). The discussion has been made on
management pedagogy and it is considered as an attempt to promote the critical spirit. Critical
thinking includes only some of the knowledge about thinking that management need. Critical
thinking is widely known as the generative dimensions of the thought. Decision making is
focused with the process in which the options are selected for execution (Thorstad & Wolff,
2018). Formal approaches of decision making have been discussed in this article with strength
and weaknesses. The strength of formal approaches is to maintain the positivistic assumptions
about the logic. The limited applicability is the weakness of the formal approach (Smith, 2003).

How to think 5
Identified gap in the article
The gap has been found in the context of critical thinking. The article has described about the
critical thinking of business education and management education. This can be discussed more
about the different education. The question has been raised in the article about the critically
thinking as traditionally conceived and taught to the managers. This can be explained in depth
manner by taking consideration of different author’s point of view. The limitations of critical
thinking can be emphasized to show about the thinking procedures of the effective thinkers
(Exodus, 2016). An effective conceptual framework can be improved. However, the formal
approaches are being described in the article by taking consideration of strengths and weaknesses
but the article should have been more focused about the improvement of the thinking abilities of
the business student. The problem solving techniques have not been hugely discussed in the
article.

How to think 6
The way of research conducted
The research was conducted on this article by taking help of qualitative data. Various articles,
journals and online resources were being used in this research. The research was conducted for
analyzing the business student how to think critically. Various approaches were being applied in
this research to provide the information regarding this. The programmatic issues and pedagogical
advice had been used in the article to make it better from other journal articles. Qualitative
research was effective approach to gather the information about the relevant topic and it can be
gathered from journal sources, news paper, articles and online sources (Merriam & Tisdell,
2015). Images had been mentioned in the article to provide the practical information about the
decision making process. Various theories and approaches to decision making were being opted
which described by taking help of journal articles. Three alternative views were considered for
describing the decision making such as critical thinking psychological perspective of critical
decision making, group and organizational perception of critical decision making and naturalistic
decision making. The research had followed the major steps of the research. Initially the topic is
developed then background information was being found. The books, media, journals and
internet sources were taken to support the argument which covers the qualitative approach
(Holloway & Galvin, 2016).

How to think 7
Findings
The findings of the article are that it was attempted to get better the abilities of thinking business
students. It shows the positive aspect of the finding. The negative aspect of it is critical thinking
as traditionally conceived fails to define various thinking tasks and challenges faced by mangers.
Various approaches and theories are being described in this article. Knowledge about topic level
framework is developed for the teaching of thinking. This framework is involved the content of
critical thinking and decision making in wider manner and problem solving centred approach
(Morton, Fontaine, Hudak & Gallo, 2017). It has been found that the business student can be
taught by applying sophisticated quantitative approach. Pedagogical issues have been described
in a way to represent the value of effective thinkers in critical thinking. It has been found that
task of pedagogical is doable to teach student how to think. It shows that in next decades, various
business schools will accept this opportunity and building a significant reputation not only for
themselves but for their students.
The implications of the article for management practice
This article can be implicated for the management practice by applying the approaches of critical
thinking and decision making. The implication of this study derives from the findings on the
effectiveness of the gathered information. Various business schools can apply this approach for
enabling their students about critical thinking. It can be associated by reframing the concerns of
how to provide the support to the business school in the context of development rather than
instrumental. It has been suggested by findings that quantitative techniques can be applied in the
business school to teach the student. The focus should be given on the capability of the
management of applying this theory in the practice instead of focusing of how to nurture the

How to think 8
ability of the knowledge. The management success can be done by effective thinking which can
be implemented in every task of the managers. Thinking is more important process for the
management and organization that needs presents to handle with different cases and incidents
which nature is typical to handle by established procedures. Critical management pedagogy is the
major task of management education (McLaren, 2015. There are various decisions that are made
by rapid that is why it is necessary to have the knowledge about the critical thinking to take the
appropriate decision. The life of organization is full of research tasks and it is required to have
the manager with problem solving skills. Problem solving is the thinking to resolve the issues of
the management. The role of decision making is also vital in the context of management practice.
It is majorly focused on the evaluations of the alternatives and evaluation is considered as the
complex process in which the positive as well as negative aspects of the conditions are weighted
to take the appropriate decision.
Evaluation of the article's effectiveness and credibility
It has been evaluated that the article is credible as it involves the relevant resources such as
journals, book and online resources. Various topics have been evaluated in the context of
problem solving negotiation, design, diagnosis, alternative generation and argumentation.
Comprehensive programs are described in order to teach the business students how to think. The

How to think 9
discussion is not made only on the advantages of the decision making and critically thinking
rather the limitations are also provided in the article that shows the critical analysis of the topic.
The discussion about infenrtial errors have been described which is helpful for other readers to
know about the inoculating people against the mistakes.
Conclusion
It has been concluded that the critical thinking and decision making is the main process to
evaluate the management’s concern. The assignment has been made on specific articles which
build consciousness of the requirement to teach business students how to think. The gap and the
findings of the article have been critically evaluated in this assignment. Qualitative research is
being focused by this article to gather the information about the critical thinking and decision
making process. It has been found that the thinking is more important process for the
management and organization that needs to handle with different cases and incidents.

How to think 10
References
Exodus, (2016). Critical Thinking In The Decision Making Process. Retrieved on 23rd March,
2018, from: https://exodusescaperoom.com/critical-thinking-in-the-decision-making-
process.
Hamid, A. (2016). Prospective critical thinking and cognitive students based learning through
inquiry. In Prosiding seminar kimia.
Holloway, I., & Galvin, K. (2016). Qualitative research in nursing and healthcare. John Wiley
& Sons.
Lee, D. S., Abdullah, K. L., Subramanian, P., Bachmann, R. T., & Ong, S. L. (2017). An
integrated review of the correlation between critical thinking ability and clinical decision‐
making in nursing. Journal of clinical nursing.
McLaren, P., 2015. Life in schools: An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of
education. Routledge.
Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2015). Qualitative research: A guide to design and
implementation. John Wiley & Sons.
Morton, P. G., Fontaine, D., Hudak, C. M., & Gallo, B. M. (2017). Critical care nursing: a
holistic approach (p. 1056). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Smith, G. F. (2003). Beyond critical thinking and decision making: Teaching business students
how to think. Journal of Management Education, 27(1), 24-51.

How to think 11
Thorstad, R., & Wolff, P. (2018). A big data analysis of the relationship between future thinking
and decision-making. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(8), E1740-
E1748.