Perception and Decision Making
Individuals with in organizations have to make important decisions everyday, the choices they make greatly effects their outcomes. How individuals in organizations make decisions and the quality of their final choices are largely influenced by their perceptions. During this examination of the role of perception in the decision making process, we will be discussing the meaning of perception and how an individual’s perception of others can impact an organization’s behavior. We will also look at the positive and negative effects of using perception short cuts when judging others. Finally, we will analyze how decisions in real world organizations are made, and how our perceptions shape ethical or moral decisions.
Perception
The process, by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment, is referred to as perception (Robbins, 2005). . However, there are a number of factors that influence perception; these factors can cause individuals who see the same thing happen, perceive what happened differently. Factors in the perceiver such as attitudes, motives, interests, experience and expectation; factors in the situation such as time, work setting, and social setting; and factors in the target such as novelty, motion, sounds, size, background, proximity, and similarity, all influence an individuals perception (Robbins, 2005).
A person’s perception of others can highly impact an organizations behavior. Having the accurate perceptions of people can have a key role in selecting the right people to build an effective work team, and working environment as a whole. In contrast, if, for example, a manager’s perception of the individuals they choose to be on their wo ...