Decision Process Models and Organizational Context: Level and Sector Make a Difference

Kingsley, Gordon; Reed, Pamela Norton

doi:10.2307/3380955

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Experiment-based studies show that decision content accounts in part for decision makers' choice of either a quantitative approach or a narrative schema (Goldstein and Weber 1995), their choice of information medium used as a decision aid (Dutton, Danziger, and Kraemer 1980), and their choice of decision-making criteria (Brown, Braskamp, and Newman 1978). Decision content also interacts with the legal status of organizations, having a different impact for public organizations than for private ones (Coursey and Bozeman 1990;Kingsley and Reed 1991;Kingsley 1997;Nutt 1999).…”

Section: Decision Content and The Decision-making Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Public Management Decision Making: Effects of Decision Content

Bozeman¹,

Pandey²

2004

Public Administration Review

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One obvious aspect of public management decisions and decision making has largely escaped attention-decision content. We examine the effects of decision content by asking the following questions for budget cutback and information technology decisions: How does content affect the time required for decision making? How does content affect who participates? How does content affect the decision criteria employed? How does content affect the information quality used in the decision-making process and red tape? The results suggest that information technology and budget cutback decisions differ in important ways. For information technology decisions, cost-effectiveness is not a significant criterion, average decision time is much longer, and decisions are generally viewed as permanent and stable. For cutback decisions, cost-effectiveness is a significant criterion, decisions are made much more quickly, and they are viewed as unstable and changeable. Surprisingly, decision content does not appear to affect the number of participants.Public management scholars "discovered" decision making decades ago, and they have been sufficiently enamored of the topic as to suggest decision making as a central focus for public administration theory and research (Simon 1997; Simon, Smithburg, and Thompson 1950). The attractions of decision making are clear enough. In organizations, decisions are the markers for action and the precursors to accomplishment or failure. Failure, in turn, signals the need for new decisions. Herbert Simon notwithstanding, contemporary students of organizational performance understand that decisions and decision processes are best viewed as one important aspect of performance-a vital Act I, but not the whole show. At least since Pressman and Wildavsky's (1973) studies, we have understood that quality decisions absent quality implementation adds up to dashed hopes. Similarly, contemporary observers understand that an organization's outcomes are decided by the trajectories set down by organizational culture and by the resources available, as well as the organization's niche within its interorganizational legal and economic environment. But even if most researchers agree that decision making is not all, they also agree that it is much.The field of public management holds no exclusive license to conduct decision-making research. Researchers in business, economics, and particularly, psychology have their own decision-making research traditions. When one considers the rich, multidisciplinary tradition of decisionmaking research, it is not at all surprising that so many aspects of decision making and decision processes have been investigated. Thus, we know a great deal about such diverse topics as decision framing, participation, performance, and especially risk (Wise and Freitag 2002;Sitkin and Weingart 1995;Sitkin and Pablo 1992).One obvious aspect of decisions and decision making has largely escaped attention-decision content. Does the content of a decision affect attendant decision processes? From a normative per...

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Section: Decision Content and The Decision-making Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Public Management Decision Making: Effects of Decision Content

Bozeman¹,

Pandey²

2004

Public Administration Review

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“…The findings associated with these three variables should be cautiously accepted until verified by further research. However, there is a large literature on the influence of participation in decision-making on performance which may be useful when developing dissemination interventions for hospitals [27,50].…”

Section: Hospital Structure and Decision-makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of individual and organizational factors on the reported smoking intervention practices of staff in 20 antenatal clinics

Cooke

Mattick

Campbell³

1998

Drug and Alcohol Review

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This study investigates the factors which influence the reported use of a smoking cessation interventions in antenatal clinics. Midwives and doctors in 20 hospital antenatal clinics (n = 203) completed a survey designed to measure their perceptions, knowledge and use of brief interventions for smoking. Measures for hospital structure and work climate were also obtained. The aims of the study are: to describe the smoking intervention practice of antenatal clinic staff and to ascertain the organizational and practitioner variables which predict clinician use of smoking interventions. The results indicate that the majority of antenatal clinic staff do not use the most effective forms of brief interventions for smoking. The presence of specific procedures and training in smoking cessation intervention appear to be the most important predictors of reported smoking intervention in hospital antenatal clinics.

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“…Among public administration researchers, there has been a good deal of interest in studying the difference between public and private organizations. Especially relevant for present purposes are studies of public-private differences in decision making (Coursey & Bozeman, 1990;Kingsley, 1997;Kingsley & Reed, 1991;Nutt, 1999). The general conclusion of many of these studies is that compared to private organizations, public organizations are subjected to greater influence by external political and governmental institutions, especially in such functions as personnel and purchasing (Rainey et al, 1995) and greater external scrutiny and accountability (Perry & Rainey, 1988).…”

Section: Hypotheses Red Tape and External Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Decision making in organizations requires processing and transmission of information across different levels of organizations. In public organizations, the tendency to have committees (Hickson, Butler, Cray, Mallory, & Wilson, 1986, p. 202) and internal meetings (Kingsley & Reed, 1991) in the decision process is significantly higher than their private counterparts. This potentially means participation of several individuals at different levels of organization in any given decision.…”

Section: Participation and Red Tapementioning

confidence: 99%

Red Tape and Public Managers' Decision Making

Turaga¹,

Bozeman

2005

The American Review of Public Administration

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Whereas past studies have examined organizational red tape in terms of either particular organizational processes, time required to fulfill organizational functions, or Managers'perceptions, our research anchors red-tape constructs in the context of particular decisions. Using data from a mail questionnaire survey of public managers in state health and human services organizations, the study hypothesizes that public Managers'assessments of the red tape in decisions is a function of degree of external control, number of participants in decisions, the reversibility of decisions, “risk culture,” and especially the decision content. After using multiple regression to control for possible spurious relationships, the results suggest a two-factor explanation; specifically, assessments of the red tape in decisions are accounted for by the organization's level of hierarchy (more hierarchical organizations have more red tape in decisions) and by the particular content of the decisions.

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Decision Process Models and Organizational Context: Level and Sector Make a Difference

Cited by 17 publications

References 25 publications

Public Management Decision Making: Effects of Decision Content

Public Management Decision Making: Effects of Decision Content

The influence of individual and organizational factors on the reported smoking intervention practices of staff in 20 antenatal clinics

Red Tape and Public Managers' Decision Making

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