Knowledge and Decision Making - Do We Want What We Need?

Abstract

Knowledge is a category that includes many past decisions. They could be good for the past but it is a question if they can work in the future. We can talk about programmed and non-programmed decisions. When a predetermined situation triggers a predetermined response we can talk about a programmed decision. If one wants to make a non-programmed decision he/she must search for information, identify the problem, evaluate possible alternatives, and act. If the process is more complicated, programmed decision will be more effective. Our research has revealed that future managers in Slovenia possess knowledge that involves more programmed that non-programmed decisions. This may indicate that they will have a lot of difficulties with decision making in complicated organisational systems. However, they cannot learn how to take decisions (even if they want to) because they do not know what they actually need. If they are successful at non-programmed decisions they want more knowledge from the same area; in fact they would need more knowledge about programmed decisions -and vice versa.