B.6 Individual Decision-Making A key function of managers is decision-making. A large number of decisions in an organisation are made by managers as individuals. This is often the case when the decisions are routine or programmed decisions. When the risk involved in the decision is low, managers also tend to make such decisions as individuals. When a manager selects a course of action to solve a given problem or to takes advantage of a particular opportunity all by himself/herself, it is known as individual decision-making. The manager may obtain information from colleagues but the choice is made by him her. Examples of individual decision-making are allocation of work to subordinates, decision to reorder raw materials from a known or regular supplier, handling customer complaints, decision on how much discount to give a customer, etc. B.6.1 Advantages of individual decision-making (a) Decision is fast. b) Responsibility for the decision can be assigned to the person that made the decision. c) Implementation of the decision will be fast. d) Job satisfaction of the manager will be high. e) The manager's experience is brought to bear on the decision. B.6.2 Disadvantages of individual decision-making (a) The outcomes of individual decision may not be satisfactory because the decision is likely to be influenced by individual perceptions, values and priorities. b) The decision maker can only rely on a limited amount of information to make the decision. c) There might be a tendency for the manager to "pass the buck' d) Individual decision-making is often not appropriate when the problem is complex, novel or when the level of uncertainty is high. e) Individual decisions may not enjoy the support of all relevant stakeholders, thus, reducing the chance of success. f) Individual decisions often do not benefit from institutional knowledge, that is, body of knowledge residing indifferent elements of the organisation.