Assignment: Case Analysis: The Decision Making Process
You are to write a minimum, 2 page essay, on subject matter per below.
Also, please cite at least two (2) outside sources. APA format to include separate title and reference pages. Times New Roman 12 pt font and double spacing required. You will also find a guide for your case study below. Select a case of organizational decision making from the list of references attached, OR select a case from your own experience or reading.
Your case analysis should cover the following:
1. The context of the decision making processes, including for example: the goals, activities, history or culture of the organization; the complexity and special features of the task or problem; the major stakeholders of the decisions.
2. The main phases or activities of the decision making process, including for example: the background leading up to the problem situation; problem recognition; development and evaluation of alternatives; selection of alternative; and outcome of the decision. Where possible, analyze the information seeking and information use behaviors in the decision making process.
3. Analyze your case using one or more of the models introduced this week. You may also introduce other theoretical perspectives/cases to enrich your analysis. Show how these models/perspectives provide insight into your case.
4. Assess the overall quality of the decision making process. Identify its strengths and limitations. Suggest ways of improving the process.
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Case Study Sources
These are initial suggestions that might help you to identify cases. You would typically need to look for additional material after selecting a case to study.
Bazerman, M. H., & Watkins, M. D. 2004. Predictable Surprises: The Disasters You Should Have Seen Coming, and How to Prevent Them. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Burns, Christopher. 2008. Deadly Decisions: How false knowledge sank the Titanic, blew up the shuttle and led America into war. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Browne, Mairead. 1993. Organizational Decision Making and Information. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. (Decision making by a council of a higher education institute in Sydney, Australia.)
Chiles, James R. 2001. Inviting Disaster: Lessons From the Edge of Technology. New York: HarperBusiness. (Air France Concorde, Apollo 13, Hubble Space Telescope, etc)
Choo, Chun Wei. 2005. Information Failures and Organizational Disasters. Sloan Management Review 46 (3):8-10.
Choo, Chun Wei. 2009. Organizational Disasters: Why They Happen and How They May be Prevented. Management Decision, 46 (1): 32-46
Chua, Alton Y.K., Selcan Kaynak, and Schubert S.B. Foo. 2006. An Analysis Of The Delayed Response To Hurricane Katrina Through The Lens Of Knowledge Management. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 58 (3):391-403.
Drummond, Helga. 1997. Escalation in Decision Making: The Tragedy of Taurus. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Ermann, M. David, and Richard J. Lundman, eds. 2001. Corporate and Governmental Deviance: Problems of Organizational Behavior in Contemporary Society. 6th ed.
Evan, William M., and Mark Manion. 2002. Minding the Machines: Preventing Technological Disasters. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR. (Bhopal, Chernobyl, Ford-Firestone, Love Canal, Three Mile Island, Y2K, and many others.)
Fay, S. 1996. The Collapse of Barings: Panic, Ignorance and Greed. London: Arrow Business Books.
Finkelstein, S., Whitehead, J., & Campbell, A. 2009. Think Again: Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Gerstein, M.S., & Ellsberg, M. 2008. Flirting with Disaster: Why Accidents Are Rarely Accidental. New York: Union Square Press. (Chernobyl, Merck Vioxx, Hurricane Katrina)
E. Frank Harrison. 1999. The Managerial Decision-Making Process. 5th Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. (Iranian hostage crisis, Philip Morris in 1984, General Motors in 1978)
Kovacs, Beatrice. 1990. The Decision-Making Process for Library Collections: Case Studies in Four Types of Libraries. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. (Collection development decision making in public libraries, school libraries, academic libraries, and special libraries.)
National Geographic. 2004-2013. Seconds from Disaster. Documentary films that “investigate historically relevant man-made and natural disasters … by analyzing the causes and circumstances that ultimately affected the disaster.”
Neck, Chris P., and Gregory Moorhead. 1992. Jury Deliberations in the Trial of US vs. John Delorean: A Case Analysis of Groupthink Avoidance and Enhanced Framework. Human Relations 45 (10):1077-1091.
Perrow, Charles. 1999. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident, Bhopal Union Carbide plant, air traffic control.)
Shrivastava, Paul. Bhopal: Anatomy of a Crisis. 2nd ed. London: P. Chapman, 1992.
The 9/11 Commission. 2004. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton.
The Members of the Committee of the Inquiry. 2000. BSE Inquiry Report, Volume 1: Findings & Conclusions. London, UK: The Stationery Office.
Walker, J. S. 2004. Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Case study:
The logical process of analyzing a case study involves: (1) Determining if the organization faces a problem that requires action on the part of managers; (2) the nature of this problem, including both direct and in-direct causes of the problem; and (3) the specific actions that should be taken in order to improve or rectify the situation that the firm faces. Students are typically asked to role-play by assuming that they are either an individual identified in the case or an individual being asked to provide specific advice to the central organization in the case study.
Specifically, students are provided with a case study document that recounts a real management challenging facing a manager/management team. Students then analyze the situation by defining the Primary Problem, developing Alternative Solutions, and creating an Implementation Plan that covers the short/medium/long term. This is a written assignment and students will prepare a report of not more than seven (7) pages in length (single-spaced, 12-point font, 1 inch margins), not including a required Executive Summary.
(Here is the case information, the whole text is on the file below. )
William Blair Funds investing for the future: The Global/Local Challenge of Online Groceries
Introduction:
The global COVID-19 pandemic has forced billions of people into their homes and out of retail stores. The result has been a massive shift towards online shopping which has hugely benefited e-commerce companies. In addition to being one of the world’s most valuable companies, Amazon is now also the world’s most valuable brand, having expanded from books to almost everything consumers want to buy. Well, almost everything. For a company like Amazon, that seeks to make life more convenient for consumers, developing an online grocery always seemed like a natural fit, and they have long coveted this valuable, if competitive, global market. But success in this market has proven elusive, both for Amazon and other would-be online grocery retailers. One of the key questions surrounding, what most expect will be a robust online market for groceries even when the current pandemic passes, is whether the online world of groceries was likely to be more international or even global when traditionally, grocery retailing had remained dominated by domestic competitors.
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William Blair & Company is an American investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Chicago. The company was established in 1935 and has almost $100B USD in assets under management. Their International Growth Fund looks to invest into companies that are likely to experience growth in the next couple of years, over and above what is expected for the industries in which they are operating. In other words, they are looking to select the companies that are best positioned to out-perform their competitors.
As a new investment analyst with William Blair, you have been asked to look at the market for online groceries and to select one company from either the United States, Canada or the United Kingdom which you believe is well-positioned to outperform over the next few years in this market. The company can be an existing grocery retailer such as Loblaw, Wal-Mart or Morrisons, or one of the app developers such as Instacart or an online retailer such as Amazon. You will want to consider the business model of the company (how they make money), the market(s) in which they operate, and the likelihood of success of their approach to on-line grocery shopping compared to the others being developed.
(I prefer to choose Amazon for the case study )