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This paper proposes a relationship between decision making and key qualities of business systems.

The authors explore the relationship between decision making and systems by contrasting the decision making in two well‐known systems: MRP and JIT. The two systems present two sets of opposing qualities. By considering the relationship between a decision and its environment, we propose that these sets of qualities are not unique to MRP and JIT. They arise from two general approaches to decision making. Having introduced the two approaches, we analyze three product development systems: Stage‐Gate, Agile and Lean.

In manufacturing, MRP is a push system; JIT is a pull system. MRP seeks perfection; JIT seeks consistency. MRP gives decision makers great discretion; JIT constrains decisions. These opposing qualities, and others, arise from two general approaches to decision making: outside‐in and inside‐out. As the difficulty of decisions increase, relative to a decision maker's ability, the cost of mistakes becomes significant. In these situations, the inside‐out approach should outperform the outside‐in approach. The inside‐out approach constrains decision making to limit the cost of errors. The outside‐in approach embraces complexity, exposing itself to more decision errors. In product development, the Lean and Agile systems exploit the inside‐out approach. They constrain decisions and reduce the cost of errors that arise from two sources. Lean addresses interactions, which add complexity to business systems. Agile addresses unpredictability, which adds uncertainty to business systems.

The relationships the authors propose show how decision making affects the development, control and performance of business systems.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the selection of decision-making approaches at manufacturing companies when implementing process innovations.

This study reviews the current understanding of decision structuredness for determining a decision-making approach and conducts a case study based on an interactive research approach at a global manufacturer.

The findings show the correspondence of intuitive, normative and combined intuitive and normative decision-making approaches in relation to varying degrees of equivocality and analyzability. Accordingly, the conditions for determining a decision-making choice when implementing process innovations are revealed.

This study contributes to increased understanding of the combined use of intuitive and normative decision making in production system design.

Empirical data are drawn from two projects in the heavy-vehicle industry. The study describes decisions, from start to finish, and the corresponding decision-making approaches when implementing process innovations. These findings are of value to staff responsible for the design of production systems.

Unlike prior conceptual studies, this study considers normative, intuitive and combined intuitive and normative decision making. In addition, this study extends the current understanding of decision structuredness and discloses the correspondence of decision-making approaches to varying degrees of equivocality and analyzability.

This paper investigates how individuals' decision-making approach and perceptions of a game's cognitive realism affect the performance of virtual businesses in a web-based simulation game.

Survey data are collected from 274 business simulation game users and is analysed using the fsQCA technique.

The study identifies three alternative pathways to high and low performance in a business simulation game. Results indicate that a flexible decision-making approach exists in all high performance pathway solutions. Where a game is perceived to be realistic, a more focused decision-making approach is associated with high performance. However, where perceived cognitive realism is absent, a less focused experimental decision-making approach is employed, which increases the chances to achieve low performance. Finally, perceived cognitive realism and an experimental decision-making approach are found to be mutually exclusive for achieving high performance.

Whilst the learning benefits of web-based simulation games are widely acknowledged, the complex interplay amongst factors affecting performance in games is under-researched. Limited research exists on how perceptions of a game's cognitive realism interact with user decision-making approaches to affect performance.

This paper aims to analyse three decision-making approaches that involve humans and artificial autonomous agents, namely, human “in the loop”, “on the loop” and “out of the loop” and identifies the decision characteristics that determine the choice of a decision-making approach.

This is a conceptual paper that analyses the relationships between the human and the artificial autonomous agents in the decision-making process from the perspectives of the agency theory, sustainability, legislation, economics and operations management.

The paper concludes that the human “out of the loop” approach is most suitable for quick, standardised, frequent decisions with low negative consequences of a wrong decision by the artificial intelligence taken within a well-defined context. Complex decisions with high outcome uncertainty that involve significant ethical issues require human participation in the form of a human “in the loop” or “on the loop” approach. Decisions that require high transparency need to be left to humans.

The paper evaluates the decision-making approaches from the perspectives of the agency theory, sustainability, legislation, economics and operations management and identifies the decision characteristics that determine the choice of a decision-making approach.

This study will examine the school principals’ ethical decision-making processes and to explore gender-related differences.

This study employed a mixed-method research design, combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with a sample of 10 male and 10 female principals, who were presented with ethical dilemma scenarios. The qualitative component utilized a phenomenological analysis, while additional quantitative analyses were performed on the same dataset to explore gender-related differences.

Our analysis of principals' ethical evaluations identified three key areas where gender-related differences were evident: decision-making approaches, leadership styles, and philosophy/value orientations. The analysis revealed that women more frequently employed personal approaches, while men favored institutional approaches in their ethical evaluations. Secondly, men tended to adopt a democratic style, while women leaned towards an autocratic style. Finally, men exhibited a relativist orientation, while women displayed an idealist orientation in their ethical decision-making processes.

Gender-based analysis of school principals’ ethical decision-making process has remained an under-researched area. This study contributes to the understanding of gender-related differences in principals’ ethical decision-making processes.

This exploratory study aimed to investigate law enforcement officers’ decision-making processes in high-stress scenarios, exploring variations based on experience and how cognitive demands influence officer decision-making processes.

Employing a naturalistic decision-making approach and macrocognitive framework, the study utilizes scenario-based virtual reality simulations and qualitative interviews to examine the decision-making processes of law enforcement officers in high-stress policing contexts.

Thematic coding of interview data from twelve LEOs immediately following a high-stress virtual reality task revealed differences in decision-making processes and cognitive demands between novice and expert officers. Findings also revealed differences in the type of cognitive demands experienced by officers at key points in the simulated scenario.

The authors offer theoretical and practical contributions toward an increased understanding of officer decision-making, factors and conditions that impact LEO decisions and potential mitigation strategies that law enforcement organizations may leverage to improve officer decision-making in high-stress contexts.

This paper aims to examine managerial decision-making approaches, their antecedents and consequences in the Arabian Gulf context. Using recent survey data, the study offers a critical assessment of prevailing myths about decision-making styles in the Arabian Gulf.

Survey data were collected from a sample of 432 managers working in public and private sector companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A combination of statistical techniques including confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and hierarchical regression analysis was used to test research hypotheses.

The findings of this study question the myth that UAE or Gulf managers mostly pursue consultative and participative styles of management. Most UAE managers continue to practice an autocratic and a pseudo-consultative style of decision-making, undermining the value of employee input in the decision-making process. The data revealed a strong negative relationship between autocratic management style and a range of personal and organizational outcomes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, performance and innovative human resource management practices pertaining to work-family life balance and diversity programs. Most employees perceived autocratic management style as a major source of job stress, absenteeism and turnover. Socio-demographic characteristics of managers and their work organizations, considered as antecedents of decision-making styles, played a limited role in shaping decision-making approaches or their consequences. Globalization and associated socio-cultural changes that UAE and other Gulf region countries have experienced over the past two decades seem to have only a marginal impact on decision-making styles.

Use of perceptual survey data places some constraints on the generalizability of our findings. Future research may address this issue with multiple data sources including an in-depth case study.

The findings of this research should be of special interest to both domestic and multinational companies in seeking alignment of their management approaches with the emerging competitive business environment in UAE and other Gulf countries. Theoretically, the paper documents the value of the continuum theory of managerial behavior in UAE and the Arabian Gulf context.

The study represents a first major effort to develop and test a comprehensive conceptual model of antecedents and consequences of managerial decision-making styles in UAE, which may be extended to other countries in the Arabian Gulf region. The value-added contribution of the study may be seen in its critical analysis of prevailing beliefs and assumptions about management practices in the Arabian Gulf.

Evolving digital technologies continue to enable new ways to collect and analyze data and this has led some researchers to claim that skillful use of data analytics and big data can radically improve a company’s performance, but that in order to achieve such improvements managers need to change their decision-making culture and to increase the degree of collaboration in the decision-making process. The purpose of this paper is to create an increased understanding of how a decision-making culture can be changed by using a design approach.

The paper presents an action research project in which the authors use a design approach.

By adopting a design approach organizations can change their decision-making culture, increase the degree of collaboration and also reduce the influence of power and politics on their decision-making.

This paper proposes a new approach to changing a decision-making culture.

Using data analytics and big data, a design approach can support organizations change their decision-making culture resulting in better and more effective decisions.

This paper bridges design and decision-making theory in a novel approach to an old problem.

In the era of Big Data, larger volumes of data arrive in various forms at an increasing pace but of questionable quality and value. The abundant information (that emanates from these 5Vs – volume, variety, velocity, veracity, and value) taxes the bounded capacity of managers. This chapter introduces a taxonomy of approaches available for strategic decision making in an information-rich environment, several of which showcase that automation can help to augment (not supplant) managerial decision making. This taxonomy is then applied to an innovation context. Mapping a stylized version of the phases of the innovation process (i.e., front-end innovation, new product development, commercialization) onto the four decision-making approaches yields an organizing framework for understanding strategic decision making in the realm of innovation. The chapter concludes by identifying promising areas for future research.

This conceptual chapter: (1) explicates the foundational terminology regarding strategic decision making in a marketing context; (2) provides a primer on the era of Big Data and making strategic decisions in an information-rich environment; (3) introduces a taxonomy, which features approaches to decision making in an information-rich environment; and (4) applies the taxonomy in an innovation context to yield an organizing framework.

This chapter focuses on the nascent field that is emerging at the intersection of innovation, marketing strategy, and information-rich environments, and breaks new ground by exploring automation available to aid managerial decision making in this realm.

The main practical implication is to elucidate that managers can apply different approaches to decision making in today’s information-rich environment. Tables 2–4 provide to managers 12 examples of the types of decision making in an innovation context.

This chapter introduces a new taxonomy to classify four approaches for making strategic decisions in an information-rich environment, and extends that framework to the innovation realm. This framework aims to prompt researchers to explore important topics that exist at the intersection of innovation, marketing strategy, and managerial decision making in an information-rich environment.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of cancer patients’ information behaviour on their decision-making at the diagnosis and treatment stages of their cancer journey. Patients’ information sources and their decision-making approaches were analyzed.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 participants.

The cancer patients sought information from various sources in choosing a hospital, physician, treatment method, diet and alternative therapy. Physicians were the primary information source. The patients’ approaches to treatment decision-making were diverse. An informed approach was adopted by nine patients, a paternalistic approach by four and a shared decision-making approach by only two.

In practice, the findings may assist hospitals and medical professionals in fostering pertinent interactions with patients.

The findings can enhance researcher understanding regarding the effect of cancer patients’ information behaviour on their decision-making.