Decision Making in Hospitality Industry Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Decision Making in Hospitality Industry - Essay modelingAccording to Kolb (1983, p109) the central characteristics of an organisation is that they are problem solving systems, the success is measured by how efficiently they solve routine problems associated with survival and growth in a changing world.A hard problem is one which is well defined and structured and one where an outcome is normally predictive. Hard problems can be described as simple, well-defined, bounded and tame. Hard problems are where the problem is known, objectives are clear, priorities are clear, knowledge base exists, limited people touch on and can be treated as a separate matter, none or choice of clear solutions available, easy to measure success, often short term issues are involved and are of limited time scale. Examples of Hard Problems data Analysis (trend, regression, distribution etc. Queue Modelling, Line balancing (Bottleneck analysis), Decision analysis and decision trees, start Management techni ques, Business modelling and forecasting, Route scheduling and location analysis, occupation scheduling, staff scheduling.A soft problem is a problem which is complex in terms of structure, is non well defined, involve the social system fundamental interaction of people and the outcome cannot be predicted. (After Hicks 1991). Soft problems can be described as Complex, unbounded, ill-defined and messy. ... Queue Modelling, Line balancing (Bottleneck analysis), Decision analysis and decision trees, Project Management techniques, Business modelling and forecasting, Route scheduling and location analysis, Production scheduling, staff scheduling.A soft problem is a problem which is complex in terms of structure, is not well defined, involve the social system interaction of people and the outcome cannot be predicted. (After Hicks 1991). Soft problems can be described as Complex, unbounded, ill-defined and messy. Soft problems are where the problems are not clear, objectives are not clea r, priorities are not clear, many people involved, affects other areas / departments, what to do is not known, difficult to measure success, often medium to long term issues, longer iridescent time scale.Problem solving O Loughlin and Mc Fadzeam (1999) suggest several approaches to problem solvingCognitive Processing Individual Traits - theorists believe that individual perception may influence problem solving performance.Reasoned action perspective - focuses on the relationship between the intended behaviour during the problem solving process and the certain behaviour being observedDecision theory - a process whereby management chooses a solution to the problem from a range of alternatives using decimal data analysis.Organisational trait - an attempt is made to explain organisational problem solving terms of an organisations physical attributesGroup problem solving - in companies problems are solve in groups the result of group thinking. The process of solving hard problems1) Data Gathering Data needs to be gathered on activities, resources, costs and constraints.2) contemporaries of Ideas/ Plans Activities needs to be prioritized. While