PSY 302 Week 2 DQ 2 Decision Making in the Workplace

Week 2 DQ 2 Decision Making in the Workplace

The decision-making process is important at every level of an organization. Regardless of position, workers are faced with making daily decisions. Apply the six-step rational decision-making model, within Chapter 8 of your course text, to one of the following situations: 

a. You are a product officer for a high-tech company. You have two new products to market, but only have funding for one. How will you determine which product to introduce?

c. You are the corporate acquisition officer for a large oil company that has an interest in acquiring an additional small to medium-sized renewable energy company (solar, wind, etc.) in order to diversify your capabilities. What type of company should your organization acquire? Why? 

Youssef and Noon (2012, p 223) state that the rational decision making model is based on the principle of identification and selection of the result that should cause optimized value or benefit for the organization.

1. Defining the problem first: Decision has to be made to get renewable energy company of small or medium size. The type of company has to be decided. There needs to be a comparison between the present state and the probable benefit or value coming from the proposed company.

2. Identification of the criteria: If an additional company is taken, the company will have diversity and more capabilities will be offered. The present market may see more value added services. However, the new company as an additional part should complement the existing body. This way the company will have a better image in the market. Moreover, the additional inclusion should be cost effective to stay for long term. Though the two most popular alternative energy sources are the solar and the wind, there are more than these two in the market. For example, we need to consider other sources like tidal power, hydropower, OTEC or ocean thermal energy conversion and etc. Each of these should be analysed to see their merits and demerits.

3. Weighing the criteria: Any purchase or acquisition needs to be analysed well based on the criteria that have been set for analysis. We can assume that the company wants to acquire wind generated energy as the additional energy source for the oil company’s oil distribution system. This can be a good decision as customers of all types of present as well as future will approve of it since the energy source is environment friendly. This is also easily available and so cost effective. The system is also cheap for installation and maintenance. However, it will come with some demerits. For example, much land will be used for the system. There may be much noise in the surrounding area. At the same time there will be visual pollution. Still the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) comes with a positive report saying that by 2050 about 80& of the American electricity needs will be covered by alternative renewable sources. So wind power is a great alternative.

4. Generating the alternatives: According to Youssef & Noon  (2012, p. 223), the company has to look at the different marketing and development aspects of the available energy sources to see which one is more cost effective. Revisits are important. When the effectiveness of oil based energy is reanalysed, the use of wind source become quite possible and lucrative for the company. There may other options like solar or hydro power.

5. Rating the alternatives against the criteria: Grubb, 2011 states that out of 56 biggest oil producing countries 54 have passed their highest capability of production. So most of these oil producing countries are producing less. As a result, it has become a necessity to look for alternative environment friendly sources of energy. However, cost analysis has to be made and there should be more effort in reducing the bad effects.

6. Calculating the most advantageous decision: At this stage all the alternatives have to be assessed to come to a decision. I think that the company would benefit from acquiring wind based energy source. Though there are demerits, the advantages in terms of financial, environmental and accessibility are much more. So wind generated energy can be the choice.

Grubb, A. (2011). Peak oil primer. Energy Bulletin. Retrieved from http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php

NREL (2012). Renewable Electricity Futures Study. Retrieved from http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re_futures/

Youssef, C., Noon, A., (2012). Industrial/organizational psychology. Bridgepoint Education Inc..