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Reports a study of the use of information for decision making by administrative staff at the Delta State University, Abraka, Nigeria. It explores the working experience of the respondents, sources of information for official decision making, areas of decisional information use, frequency of utilisation of adequate and relevant information for decision making, and problems encountered by the administrators while seeking information for making decisions. Concludes with recommendations which could help administrative staff improve their use of information for decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and identify the basic components, tasks and application areas of expert systems (ESs) as a decision support system that has been increasingly used in the business world lately and explore its potential for improving the effectiveness of administrative decisions in the public sector. Empirically, the paper explains the role of ESs in fostering decision-making processes at the Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation (MIIC) in Egypt.

The design of this research is descriptive in the theoretical section and quantitative in the empirical one. Theoretically, the study adopted both the analytical approach and systems approach to demonstrate main concepts and relationships, while it conducted an empirical study to investigate the correlations in practice.

The research concluded that the usage of ESs is deemed to be on the top of the technical solutions that might help public organizations develop their management quality and maintain competitive strength. In addition, the results proved that ESs contribute to administrative decisions at MIIC.

The paper provides profitable findings and recommendations which can be applied by Egyptian public executives, in an attempt to ensure high quality and successful decisions using modern technology.

This study has valuable implications for theory and practice together, as it offers numerous contributions to literature in the area of concern.

Currently, our understandings of the dynamics behind the effects of politicization on values and on administrative decision-making remain largely muddled and far from complete. The richness of theoretical accounts, amassed over the past eight decades, has yielded only a limited number of empirical examinations. This failure to develop a coherent collection of empirical works can be for the most part attributed to the complexity associated with studying values, particularly to the lack of clear and testable theories and models. This article attempts to address this deficit and to add to our understandings of the association between values and administrative decision-making at the individual level by explicitly testing the Broker-Purist (BP) model (within a sample of public procurement specialists). It is found that the BP model fits the data well, which suggest the framework as a valid and useful perspective for conceptualizing the effects of environmental politicization on administrative decision-making in public procurement specifically, and in public administration in general.

The approach used here to the study of philsophical influences on educational administration is an examination of case studies of administrative decisions in educational organizations where the decisions are considered as dependent variables, and the value and/or fact bases of the decisions are considered as independent variables. Nine such case studies are summarized. Decision‐making which deals with educational purpose is viewed as one significant area in educational administration where philosophical consideration can be studied. The study of correlations between administrative decisions and the value and factual bases should make contributions toward the prediction of administrative decisions. Additional significance of this study should focus on the development of strategies to influence or change administrative decisions.

Herbert Simon's major contribution to decision‐making theory is the concept of “satisficing”. This was first posited in Administrative Behavior, published in 1947, and the book, concerned as it was with establishing a scientific approach to administrative theory, puts forward an adjustment of then‐current economic theory, which viewed administrative choice as a process of maximising. While, over the ensuing decades, Simon adjusted his definitions of both “economic man” and of “satisficing” in several subsequent publications, the original exposition of these was a major contribution to the area of administrative theory. An attempt has been made here to explore what circumstances might have led Simon into putting forward the concept of “satisficing”.

Presents the thoughts on decision processes of Chester I. Barnard, one of the century’s greatest management theorists. Includes his classic article, “Mind in everyday affairs”; his unpublished book, “The Significance of Decisive Behaviour in Social Action”; his correspondence with Herbert Simon, and significant comments found in his personal papers.

This article explores the relationship between teachers' perceptions of administrative practice in high schools and students' perceptions of the school, teachers and their own performance. It was found that where decision making is perceived by teachers as collegial, collaborative, co‐operative and consultative and providing adequate opportunities for participation it will be more likely to lead to positive student perceptions about their school and teachers, as well as perceptions about relationships and their own performance, than where decision making is more top‐down, executive or does not foster widespread involvement. Reinforcing these findings it was found that where teachers identify the main sources of stress in their schools as lack of support from management, poor leadership and ineffective decision‐making processes, students are much less favourably disposed towards their teachers or their own engagement and performance. Previously reported results have shown that such inclusive decision‐making practices may not be widespread in high schools.

In this paper the sometimes confusing concepts of structural centralization and decentralization and administrative centralization and decentralization are classified. Brief contrast Is made between the Latin American and North American models. It is hypothesized that there is a positive relationship between administrative decentralization and (I) leadership development at lower hierarchical levels, (II) greater participation in the decision‐making process by people at lower hierarchical levels, (III) an increased sense of responsibility, for the final output, by those at lower hierarchical levels, (IV) implementation of innovative changes which are proposed by individuals at lower hierarchical levels, (V) the development of different approaches to solving problems in the various subsystems at lower hier‐archical levels, (VI) the rapidity at which decisions can be made concerning local issues.

Administrative decision making is contextual both in terms of the type of decisions a position holder must make as well as how they should be made (style). This paper argues that the type of decision is a function of administrative level, and the style is a function of organizational culture. Significant decisions are likely to be intuitive at the executive level, compromise at the managerial level, and computational at the supervisory level. Effective decision‐making styles are likely to be dictative in paternalistic, directive in bureaucratic, and deliberative in synergistic organizational cultures.

Although there are many models of decision making, there are few attempts to match the appropriate decision strategy with different situations. After reviewing and comparing six contemporary decision‐making models, a framework and propositions are developed that match strategies with circumstances. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical and practical application of the proposed contingency model decision making.