Arational Decision Stages: The Breakdown of Rationality in Strategic Planning and Implementation

Competition Forum, January, 2006 by Rahman, Shakil; Tootoonchi, Ahmad; Page, Robert A Jr

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The rational decision making stages often collapse during an imminent natural disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina. Each stage is shaped by independent moderating forces, such as the of the decision maker expertise, resource constraints and imperfect information, as well as arational mediators, such as favored decision premises, political agendas and personal opportunism. The power of independent moderators tends to match the influence of the arational mediators. In highly uncertain situations these arational "black box" dynamics, tend to suspend rational decision processes.

Keywords: Crisis decision making, crisis management, arational decision making, decision stages, Hurricane Katrina

NORMATIVE DECISION MAKING REVISITED

Decision making is...

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