Organisations vary in their ability to adapt to changes in the environment. Adaptability can be determined by assessing the organisation on its homeostatic, feedback and buffers to change.
a) Homeostatis
The principle of homeostatis states that when the environment changes the organisation, once it is aware that the change has occured, tries to match the change. However, not all organisations are successful in matching changes and even when they are, they usually match the change with a delay or time lag. Organisations that are able to reduce the time lag have a better chance of survivial.
b) Feedback
Feedback is providing information about a past event and the extent to which the event was better or worse than expected. Based on the feedback organisations are able to change its behaviour to adjust to the those conditions.
c) Buffers
Traditionally, organisations have protected themselves from changes in the environment by developing buffers. Buffers are created to avoid turbulence in the organisation. Organisations cannot afford to close itself from the environment. The best way is to be open to changes in the environment and to deal with those changes with greater organisational responsiveness through greater flexibility and better assessment of the client's needs.
A) DECISION MAKING
In an ideal world,
managers would behave perfectly
rationally all the time.
Rational behaviour from a formal
decision making perspective means that
managers would ask all the right questions, obtain all necessary information, discuss the problem with all the interested parties and weigh all factors carefull and accurately before making decisions. But in real life this description of how decisions should be made is more the exception than the rule. Indeed, if one uses those criteria to define rational decision making, then most decisions made by managers appear to be irrational.
When do Managers fail to be rational decision makers?
When they:
- do not search extensively for new
information
- fail to gather contradictory information
- do not explore what is known and unknown
or organise the available information into
a coherent picture
- collect the wrong kind or amount of
information
- are unable to identify the problem or
refuse to believe that a problem exists
- develop too few alternatives
- fail to weigh the costs and benefits of
each alternative adequately
- do not reexamine the positive and negative
consequences of the alternatives before
making a decision
- apply old solutions without determining
whether they fit the problem
- misled by apparent correlations in data
Models of Decision Making
1) The Rational Model
The rational model of decision making is based on the logic of optimal choice; the choicse that would maximise value for the organisation. The manager is assumed to be an objective, totally informed person who would select the most efficient alternative. The rational choice process is when the individual has to deal with a known number of alternaitves, knowing the consequences of each alternative and able to rank these alternatives according to certain perferences or value system.
In the real world managers seldom have the time and money to explore all alternatives and it is not possible to establish the consequences of each alternative and the final choice made may not be based on a rational choice. In reality managers are satisficers, also referred to as the administrative model.
2) The Administrative Model
The administrative model sees decision makers as people with little time to make decisions and with limited resources take shortcuts to find solutions. The decison maker does not try to optimise but "satisficers" - choosing the alternative that is good enough. While satisficing may lead to a reduced decision quality but it saves time and effort.
To reduce decision making time and effort, organisations introduce standard operating procedures (SOP) which are rules, programmes and routines that are used by managers to save time and to avoid solving a problem from scratch each time it appears.
3) The Political Model
According to the politcal model, the decision maker takes into consideration the personal goals of individuals in the organisation. Decisions result from bargaining among interested parties. Here the goals, values and interests of those involved are taken into consideration. The political model views decision making as a process of conflict resolution and consensus building and decisions as products of compromise. "Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" is the dominant decision making strategy.
There is a tendency for decisions to be made only for the short term and only a limited set of alternatives are considered. Managers make small changes in response to immediate pressures instead of working out a comprehensive plan.
C) COMMUNICATION
Communication is the glue that holds an organisation together; it is the means by which an organisation creates a common vision and a common culture among all its different parts. Effective communication is the process of deliveirng reliable and undistorted data, in a timely fashion and through an appropriate format and channel. Information technology is a major enabler of communication.
Communciation is the sharing of information betwwen two or more individuals to create acertain meaning, a meaning that will be ocmmon to the sender and the receiver. Sharing of information implies the collection, analysis and transmission of information.
Formal communication: explicit messages that are recognised as official; written form and take a vertical, top-down direction
Informal communcation: spontaneous messages distributed through the network of friends and acquaintances based on self-interest; less precise, breeding ground for rumours.
Directions of communication:
a) Upward: suborinates to superiors
b) Downward: superiors to subordinates
c) Lateral: horzontal communciation
Communication distortion: the transformation of the meaning of a message by altering (intentionally or not) its content.
- routing: information going to the wrong person
- delaying the message
- summarising and leaving out important items
Feedback: is crucial to ensure good communication because the sender needs to know if the receiver got the message. For effective communcation, feedback should be prompt, clear and detailed.
SOALAN 2:
Bagai mana teknologi maklumat dapat membantu pengurus pendididkan membuat keputusan dengan lebih berkesan dan berkominikasi dengan lebih baik?
(How can information technology help an educational manager make more effective decisions and communicate better?)
In an ideal world, 
