ABSTRACT
Decision making occurs at all levels in an organization. When managers of an organization must decide how to solve a problem, two basic types of decisions are made in organizations: programmed and non-programmed (Alkin et al, 1985). In programmed decision making, managers respond to issues or problems that are routine or recurring. For example, the clinical managers have to make certain decisions including supervising and evaluating personnel while the upper level managers have to decide about all different components of an organization. However, the upper level manager makes decisions which obviously are more public and have greater consequences on the life and sustainability of an organization. Non-programmed decision making, however, involves searching for the extra information needed to make the right choice because the problem or opportunity has not been experienced before, or the degree of uncertainty about how managers should respond is critical. In this chapter we will look at services that emphasize the critical nature of decision making.
