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Purpose: The purpose of the work is to study the characteristics of leadership and to determine its value in the process of decision making in modern business systems, as well as to determine the possibilities of increasing the effectiveness of this process through changing the characteristics of leadership.

Methodology: Target study of the influence of leadership on the process of decision making in modern business systems on the basis of the methodology of the systemic approach is performed, and two additional characteristics of leadership are determined, apart from management style, in the aspect of making of managerial decisions: contradiction of leaders in business system and authority of a formal leader (business manager) in business system and his competence as to involvement of employees into the process of making of managerial decisions, which includes capabilities. Depending on combination of these characteristics, classification of leadership in modern business systems as to criterion of decision making is offered.

Conclusions: It is substantiated that the most preferable type of leadership in a modern business system as to criterion of decision making is highly effective involvement of employees in the process of making of managerial decisions. Capabilities of increasing the effectiveness of the process of making of managerial decisions in a modern system through changing the characteristics of leadership are connected to transition to this type of leadership through overcoming the contradiction of leaders in a business system and increase of competence of the formal leader (business manager) in a business system as to involvement of employees in the process of making of managerial decisions through his training.

Originality/value: It is substantiated that leadership in business system determines only certain characteristics of the process of making of managerial decisions, and no type of leadership can guarantee optimal decisions. With highly effective involvement of employees in the process of making of managerial decisions, the probability of optimal decisions is the highest, so this type of leadership is the most perspective for modern business systems.

Purpose: The purpose of the chapter is to determine the connection between organizational culture and specifics of the process of decision making in modern business systems and to determine the directions of managing the organizational culture depending on the set criteria of decision making.

Methodology: A proprietary classification of the types of organizational culture of modern business systems according to the criterion of employees' involvement into decision making is offered. This classification uses two dimensions of employees' involvement into decision making for classification of the types of organizational culture of modern business systems. First dimension: interest of business manager in involvement of employees into the process of decision making. Second dimension: employees' inclination for participation in the process of making of managerial decisions. The factors that influence these dimensions are determined.

Conclusions: Connection between organizational culture and specifics of decision making in modern business systems according to the criterion of employees' involvement in decision making is determined. The minimal level of involvement envisages independent decision making by business manager without participation of employees. In this case, a lot of problems of the business system remain unsolved and possibilities remain unused. Resource intensity of decision making is the highest, and their practical implementation is complicated by employees' dissatisfaction, but this process is conducted very quickly. The medium level of involvement envisages either collective discussion, but decision making by business manager, or collection of feedback by business manager with low interest in it from employees. In this case, resource intensity of decision making is lower, and decisions could be made and implemented faster. The highest level of involvement is connected to collective decision making by employees and business manager. This allows determining problems and using possibilities of the business system with minimal resources. Though the duration of the process of decision making is the highest, solutions are implemented quickly due to employees' support.

Originality/value: The determined specifics show the necessity for considering the influence of the organizational culture on specifics of the process of decision making in modern business systems. It is substantiated that no type of organizational culture of modern business systems according to the criterion of employees' involvement in decision making can provide a guarantee of decisions' optimality. The directions of managing the organizational culture depending on the set criteria (completeness, speed, resource intensity) of decision making are recommended.

Purpose: The purpose of the chapter is to determine the dependence of the process of decision making in modern business systems on their organizational structure and to substantiate the necessity for considering the requirements to the process of decision making during designing the organizational structure of a business system.

Methodology: A new simplified classification of the organizational structure of business systems according to the criterion of complexity is offered, and its two main types are distinguished – organizational structure of low complexity and organizational structure of high complexity.

Conclusions: According to the offered classification, dependence of the process of decision making in modern business systems on complexity of their business structure at each stage of making of managerial decisions is determined. As a result of analysis of statistical data, it is determined that business systems with organizational structure of low complexity dominate in Russia. By the example of modern Russian business systems with the organizational structure of high complexity – Sberbank, Lukoil, Gazprom, and Rosneft – it is shown that formation of the structure of this type and supporting its functioning requires resources and thus is inaccessible for most modern business systems. Moreover, the expected advantages, related to high probability of making of optimal managerial decisions, are not always gained in practice.

Originality/value: It is substantiated that the process of decision making in modern business systems largely depends on the complexity of their organizational structure. With increase of complexity of a business system, resource intensity of decision making and duration of this process increase, but the risk of nonoptimal decisions decreases. Organizational structure of low complexity is peculiar for business systems that have deficit of financial and human resources, which does not allow using the means of optimization and fully control the process of decision making. However, in this case, managerial decisions are made much quicker. In the conditions of modern market economy, it is necessary to make quick optimal decisions, which cannot be achieved within the organizational structure of either low or high complexity. Thus, it is necessary to find a way to make quick optimal managerial decisions beyond the design of organizational structure.

The purpose of the chapter is to determine the perspective directions of improving the process of decision-making in business systems by the example of modern Russia.

The scientific and methodological platform of this research is the Russian model of decision-making in modern business systems. For determining the perspective directions of improvement of the process of decision-making in business systems according to this model, the methods of systemic and problem analysis, modeling, and formalization are used.

It is shown by the example of modern Russia that perspectives of improving the process of decision-making in business systems are connected not to usage of alternative regional models of this process but to modernization of own models by usage of new organizational tools and innovational technologies. The perspective directions of improving the process of decision-making in business systems of modern Russia include development of systemic feedback and marketing with the help of outsource, increase of flexibility of organizational structure with the help of mediation, and usage of means of authomatization of managerial decisions with the help of intellectual technologies.

The compiled improved Russian model of decision-making in a modern business system showed the advantages of practical implementation of the offered perspective directions, connected to the most complete solution of the problem and implementation of possibilities of the business system, accelerated practical implementation of managerial decisions, and reduced the load on business managers. The presented example of improving the Russian model of managerial decisions in modern business systems reflects the possibilities and perspectives of improving other regional models.

Decision-making in human resources management is done at both the micro and macro level of organizations. Unfortunately, the decisions at each level are often executed without consideration of the other, and current theory reflects this issue. In response to a call for integration of micro- and macro-level processes by Huselid and Becker (2011), we review the extant literature on strategic human resources and high-performance work systems to provide recommendations for both research and practice. We aimed to contribute to the literature by proposing the incorporation of the situation awareness literature into the high-performance work systems framework to encourage the alignment of human resources efforts. In addition, we provide practical recommendations for integrating situation awareness and strategic decision-making. We discuss a process for the employment of situation awareness in organizations that might not only streamline human resources management but also result in more effective decisions. Additional considerations include implications for teams, boundary conditions (e.g., individual differences), and measurement.

Business ethics provide a potent source of competitive advantage, placing increasing pressure on organizations to create and maintain an ethical workforce. Nonetheless, ethical breaches continue to permeate corporate life, suggesting that there is something missing from how we conceptualize and institutionalize organizational ethics. The current effort seeks to fill this void in two ways. First, we introduce an extended ethical framework premised on sensemaking in organizations. Within this framework, we suggest that multiple individual, organizational, and societal factors may differentially influence the ethical sensemaking process. Second, we contend that human resource management plays a central role in sustaining workplace ethics and explore the strategies through which human resource personnel can work to foster an ethical culture and spearhead ethics initiatives. Future research directions applicable to scholars in both the ethics and human resources domains are provided.

Independent travelers are those vacationers who have booked only a minimum of their transportation and accommodation arrangements prior to departure on the vacation. Independent travel is an important and growing sector of worldwide tourism. Choice of vacation itinerary for the independent vacation represents a complex series of decisions regarding purchase of multiple leisure and tourism services. This chapter builds and tests a model of independent traveler decision-making for choice of vacation itinerary. The research undertaken employs a two-phase, inductive–deductive case study design. In the deductive phase, the researcher interviewed 20 travel parties vacationing in New Zealand for the first time. The researcher interviewed respondents at both the beginning and the end of their New Zealand vacations. The study compares pre-vacation research and plans, and actual vacation behaviors, on a case-by-case basis. The study examines case study narratives and quantitative measures of crucial variables. The study tests two competing models of independent traveler decision-making, using a pattern-matching procedure. This embedded research design results in high multi-source, multi-method validity for the supported model. The model of the Independent Vacation as Evolving Itinerary suggests that much of the vacation itinerary experienced in independent travel is indeed unplanned, and that a desire to experience the unplanned is a key hedonic motive for independent travel. Rather than following a fixed itinerary, the itinerary of an independent vacation evolves as the vacation proceeds. The independent traveler takes advantage of serendipitous opportunities to experience a number of locations, attractions and activities that they had neither actively researched nor planned.

This paper seeks to establish the influence of several types of factors on the use of accounting information in the public sector within a developing country context. Institutional theory with its branches NIS and OIE underlies the theoretical framework for explaining the factors influencing the use of accounting information. The analysis was based on structural equation modelling to test nine hypotheses. The data were collected by administering 208 questionnaires to the Tanzanian Local Government Authorities’ political and administrative actors.

At large, the findings of this study comprehend the role of institutionalised social and legal rule with professionalism in shaping actors to use accounting information instrumentally and symbolically in budget decision-making processes. Furthermore, the findings establish the importance of education and experiences on accounting and financial aspects of the actors who are involved in the public sector budget decision-making process. The findings also provide an understanding of the differences between political actors and administrative actors in terms of the factors influencing the symbolic use of accounting information in LGA’s decision-making processes.

Our findings challenge development partners (i.e. donors), reformers such as Central Government and National Accounting professional board such NBAA in Tanzania to coerce pressure by adoption of implementation of NPM techniques, which can lead to positive change in LGAs to influence instrumental rather than symbolic use of accounting information in the budgetary decision-making processes. For example, adoption of accrual basis accounting should also concur with the improvement of accounting information systems, legal and regulatory frameworks together with creation of trainings that increase skill and knowledge of using accounting information by the actors. This might ensure financial sustainability to LGAs that can increase provision of service with relevant quality to citizens. Moreover, the findings need the political parties to take responsibility of building capacity of their candidates. It might ensure that their representatives in the council are capable of making appropriate use of the accounting information at their disposal to improve the quality of budget decision making and their representation of the population for the benefit of their organisation and eventually of their political parties. The citizens are needed to be sources of professional behaviours to both councillors and administrators by making closer follow up and demands of quality services from their LGAs through budgeting processes.

The generalisation of this study’s findings can be limited because they were obtained only from LGAs operating in Tanzania

This is the first paper that establishes the factors influencing the instrumental–conceptual use and the symbolic use of accounting information in LGAs’ budgetary decision-making processes in developing country context, in particular, in Tanzania.

Among the many influences on group decision making efficacy that have been identified by group researchers, the process that a group follows in arriving at a decision is widely regarded as one of the most important. This chapter reviews the research on group decision making processes for the purpose of explicating (a) the nature of group process, (b) the factors that influence group process, (c) the role that communication plays in group process, and (d) the influence of group process on decision making efficacy. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research.