BUSN20016 : Research In Business

Introduction:

The present research proposal intends to analyze on the decision-making under pressure. Decision making relates to choices among other courses of action that might also involve inaction (Smith, 2014). Since every decisions include few element of risk, stress or pressure has critical influence on quality of decisions (Flyvbjerg, 2013). Rising effectiveness in business decision- making is a vital part of maximizing effectiveness in work. In the present accelerating business world along with ever enhancing value of time, several decisions are done under huge time pressure. The organizations frequently face unfavorable environments that exerts huge institutional pressures limiting their behavior and business decision making and grasp institutional voids that needs them to reimburse missing institutions. Every situation of decision making includes some extent of uncertainty and the managers of the enterprise face judgments relating to uncertainties. Uncertainties mainly exists where every possible consequences of event are unknown and other associated outcomes are uncertain (Betsch, 2014). The managers of an enterprise are required to have proper knowledge about risk assessment in order to move out from uncertain circumstances within the business.  The outcome of risk assessment has been used to provide information for decision making on requirement to introduce measures of risk reduction.

The cognitive science identified that psychological stress or pressure exceeding specific intensity influence the decision making quality. Under certain situations encountered in managerial or business conditions, decision making is basically studied in forms of stressors such as overload of information and time pressure.  The impact of time pressure on personal decision making can reduce quality of activities and change risk preferences. Several studies have reflected that decision support systems can help the users in these circumstances and thus improve quality of decision making (Shepherd & Rudd, 2014). The first section of this project proposal provides an overview on the problem statement, research aims and objectives, research questions, potential output and justification of this project. The second section of this study reviews on the literature and also focuses on the methods to be adopted for conducting this research. The last section highlights on the data analysis method that will be integrated for this study.

Problem statement

The business organizations across the globe have been facing continuous change in operations owing to rising competitive business environment. In today’s world, competitive advantage is developed by transferring as well as exploiting competencies across enterprise business operations. However, the enterprises are- now- days getting huge opportunities for business growth and having extra benefit of expanding their business in international nations. Recent evidences reflect that global change in business enterprises has created several challenges to the managers since they have to manage both domestic and foreign competitions. The management of the enterprise adopts policies as well as framework where they mainly experience mental framework in the business decision making. Moreover, huge pressure while making business decisions play vital role in shaping business strategies.

Several facts reflect that the managers and leaders of the business enterprise face risks that are connected with change in business strategies. This is because the HRM managers adopting strategies in business are mainly dependent upon their decision making. Even though there might be different causes behind change, inefficiency and barriers in business decision making under stress or pressure might affect its operations and performance. The employees of the business enterprise also experiences time pressure while performing in group work. Decision making behavior has significantly affected by environmental dynamics as most dynamic conditions holds such uncertainty (Knights et al., 2014). In many situations, the decision makers has to make temporal changes into account owing to change in dynamic situation. Moreover, decision maker in few cases use feedback on the impact of an individual’s action on system (Pettigrew, 2014). As the managers takes decision under pressure, the outcome of decision are sometimes not considered and hence the information is not used in proper decisions. In addition to this, while dealing with uncertainty of continuous changing business environment, the decision maker can achieve trade- off between action cost and risk of non- action. The researcher have inspected different practices that influence power of decision making but several researchers botched to ascertain relationship and real outcomes. The determination of impact of time pressure as well as individual judgment on business decision making power and liaison between them indicates the problem statement of this study.

Research Aim and objectives

The main aim of this specific research proposal is to analyze how business decision making affects growth and performance of the global enterprise (Orquin & Loose, 2013). The research study also focuses on how the managers or leaders of the organization have flexibility in business decision making.  The purpose of this research is to show the managers how to make novel choices that might adopted by the world leaders for the innovative change with less bad effects. The sub- objectives of this research proposal are described below-

• To recognize the relation between time pressure, decision making and human beings judgments on the personals.
• To explore the impact of human judgment and pressure on the business decision making
• To find out the decision made by the managers under time pressure affects procedure of globalization of the foreign firms.
• To develop different ways by which the decision- making procedure within  an organization are done under flexible working conditions
• To explore the impact of human judgment as well as pressure on the decision making of the individuals.
• To provide proper examples of the foreign firms that had mainly faced failures in business owing to fiasco in the strategic business decision making.

Research Questions

The primary question that will arise from this research proposal is –

• Do the decision making by the business leaders under pressure influences the performance and growth of the business?

The secondary research questions are stated below-

• If the managers making decisions under pressure lead to inaccurate outcomes of the business activities?
• What is the best approach for critical decision making under huge pressure?
• Do implementation of effective strategies helps the managers of an enterprise to make appropriate decision making under pressure?
• Do managers changes their emotional state of mind while making decisions under pressure?
• Does pressure acts as hindrance and challenge in the managerial decision making situations?

Justification and potential output of the research project

The potential output of this research proposal is that pressure directly influences decision making process within the business. It can be evident from several facts that the business leaders of the organizations employing various strategies in making decisions under pressure might lead to positive outcome. The research will also focus on the fact that the decision makers will be used to adapt with the time- pressured circumstances (Aruldoss, Lakshmi & Venkatesan, 2013). This in turn will benefit them to make effective decision making under difficult situations within the business. Under low pressure, the decision makers can perform in better way by taking proper decisions when both information presentation as well as task have similar type of processing. On the other hand, increased pressure might create increase in difficulties and risks during their decision making process. The decision maker under increased pressure might try to decrease cognitive load by utilizing similar strategy that is emphasized by information presented and task. Moreover, different information systems can aid the decision makers of the business enterprises to make proper decisions under huge pressure. Information systems aid the managers to attain proper information relating to business activities, which in turn can help them to make informed decisions. As the process of decision making are data intensive, the decision making tools or information systems can facilitate the business leaders to have two or more options available while making decision under pressure (Clemen & Reilly, 2013). Thus, the managers can avoid risk and uncertainty from the business decisions taken by them under pressure.

Conceptual framework 

The conceptual framework of the decision-making under pressure is described below-

                             

The above model reflects the impact of pressure on business decision making. The detailed discussion on the mentioned variables are given below-

Pressure- Pressure is usually of two levels – low and high. High pressure groups are provided one-half of time amount while low pressure groups are given time limit that is considered to be sufficient. It has been evident from prior research that varying pressure or time constraints might have direct impact on task performance. Varying extent of pressure might be manifested by change in business activities, which in turn results in performance variations. Moreover, the characteristics of task or business activities likely varies through changing time pressures. However, the managers might change their decisions owing to change in task activities. As a result, performance difference among the managers occur due to change in task characteristics under varying pressure levels (Oshima Lee & Emanuel, 2015) Also, if these two pressure levels are to be utilized, pressure can be manipulated so that the managers can take proper decisions regarding any business activities.

Performance- Petkova et al. (2014) opines that decision performance has been predicted to suffer owing to increase in pressure. Few evidences reflect that there are certain circumstances where rise in pressure is associated with better performance. In addition to this, the decision performance taken by HR managers apt to increase with rise in pressure but fall off when time pressure becomes severe. Therefore, the research findings reflect that rising pressure up to specific point leads to better decision performance but beyond that pressure might reduce its performance. Moreover, decline in decision making performance might also occur due to decision strategy (Schoemaker, 2013).

Decision strategy- Maddi (2013) found that the decision makers usually adopt simplifying strategies during high pressure. The quality of decision might decline owing to increase in time pressure. Pressure might outcome in selection of suboptimal decision strategy, which in turn can cause decline in performance. The decision maker being conscious about worse outcome can be highly conservative as well as sensitive to information. However, the decision maker can make effective decision strategies regarding change in business activities due to pressure (Hammond, Keeney & Raiffa 2015).

Task difficulty- It refers to extent of cognitive load or mental effort that is needed to recognize the problem solution. For pressure to have effect on decision strategy selection, it should be strong enough for making considerable change in task. Romiszowski (2016) opines that complexity in tasks can change due to changing pressure. Rising pressure generally enhances difficulty in business tasks rather than complexity in tasks. The objective measurement of task difficulty is generally obtained when poor performance or decision time is observed. As time pressure causes increase in difficulty of tasks or business activities, it creates difficulty for the managers to make decisions relating to completion of these activities. Moreover, highly difficult task or activities in business might force the managers to choose suboptimal decision strategy, which could then reduce performance.

Goal commitment- The two goal aspects are directly related to decision performance that includes- goal commitment and individual goal level. Both these goal levels and commitments are mainly subject to influence of different personal as well as situational factors. Moreover, complexity of tasks have been considered as one of the determinants of the goal commitment. In fact, difficulty in task has been directly related to the goal commitments. Apparently, challenge of task difficulty raises an individual’s determination to attain goals but demands of task complexity declines commitment. However, the decision making of the business managers is highly influenced by the goal commitments under pressure (Plataniotis, de Kinderen & Proper, 2013).

Information systems-The main role of information systems or decision making tools is to counteract adverse effect of time pressure on the decision strategy performance. Laudon and Laudon (2016) found out that information systems led the HR managers to make decisions in less time. During high pressure, the utilization of information systems facilitates the managers to attain accurate data relating to projects or employees work. This in turn helps them to make effective decisions in case of complex situations in business (Waas et al., 2014).

Development of hypothesis

In light of literature review, this research proposal will test the proposed hypothesis given below-

Hypothesis 1

Null Hypothesis-Time pressure do not directly influence the decision- making process

Alternative Hypothesis-Time pressure directly influence the decision making procedure

Hypothesis 2

Null hypothesis-There is no significant correlation between decision- making by managers under pressure and business performance

Alternative hypothesis- There is significant correlation between decision-making by managers under pressure and business performance.

A brief research Methodology

Different methods will be integrated for conducting this particular research study. The various tools that will be adopted for this research are- descriptive research design, positivism philosophy, deductive approach, secondary collection method and random sampling technique. For finding out the main causes behind which the HR managers of an organization make decisions under pressure and also to understand its impact on business growth, secondary data collection method will be used for conducting research on this topic.

• Literature Review-This section of the research reviews on the literature relating to impact of pressure on business decision making. The sources from where the data has been collected for reviewing literature are journal articles, books, company’s website and other articles. Several articles will provide the evidences regarding the fact that decision making under pressure directly affects the enterprise performance. The study will provide an overview on how the HR managers of the organizations change their decisions relating to change in business activities under time pressure (Johnson et al., 2013). The literature review section will focus on how the leaders of the corporations implement strategies in making effective decisions under pressure. In addition to this, the articles will also help to highlight on the evidences on how the HR managers obtain large amount of data through information systems in relatively short time period while making decisions under pressure or complex situations. The secondary source of data will also reflect on different factors that influence the managers of an organization to make business decision under pressure (De Jong & Gardner, 2013).
• Research Design- It is mainly of three types, namely- explanatory, exploratory and descriptive (Lewis, 2015). The secondary research will be conducted on the basis of descriptive research design method where it involves qualitative research design. This type of research design will help to depict the participants in effective way. On the contrary, explanatory research design will not be adopted in this study as it aids to explain facts that occur in collective manner. In addition to this, exploratory research design will also not be integrated while conducting this research as it involves investigation of situation for providing insights about the research topic (Nassaji, 2015).
• Research Approach-There are two types of research approaches namely- inductive approach and deductive approach. Deductive approach is basically concerned with hypothesis development on the basis of existing theories and designing of research strategies for hypothesis testing. This approach formulates hypothesis in terms of operation and proposed relationship between particular variables. The testing of hypothesis is done with implementation of appropriate methods. On the contrary, inductive approach is concerned with particular observations to wider theories. This approach formulates tentative hypothesis and develops conclusions based on this hypothesis. For this study, deductive approach will be integrated as it is concerned with hypothesis construction and its validity testing. It also connects with existing theories and designing of strategies for hypothesis testing (Hair et al., 2015).
• Research Philosophy- There are three major research philosophies such as- interpretivism, positivism, realism and pragmatism. Positivism philosophy portrays scientific data collection technique aligning with the present research topic. Interpretivism philosophy signifies the philosophy that takes into account emotional side of persons in future action course. On the other hand, realism portrays combined philosophy of interpretivism and positivism. Interpretivism philosophy will be adopted for conducting this research as it considers qualitative research method for conducting this study. This philosophy is connected with philosophical position of idealism and involves diverse approaches such as social constructivism. Besides this, it employs several methods that highlight on various aspects of problems relating to research study (Hughes & Sharrock, 2016).
• Collection of data-There are two methods of data collection such as – primary and secondary. Primary data collection method involves surveys and observation procedure while secondary data collection method involves archival materials, books, journal articles and websites. For this specific research study, secondary method of data collection will be adopted. The data relating to this research topic will be collected from company’s websites, journal articles and books. Moreover, this type of method is used for this study as it involves less time in conducting research.
• Sample technique-Simple random sampling technique will be adopted for conducting this research. This is because it aids to select sample from huge number of populations.
• Sample size-A total number of 20 managers from different organizations will be taken interview for collecting accurate data regarding drawing of conclusions from this research study.

Secondary Data and Data analysis method

Qualitative approach-This kind of data are mainly classified based on characteristics and properties. It gives insights about specific research problem. The methods used for collecting qualitative data are interview process, materials. The interview of HR managers in global enterprise will be conducted to find out how their decision making procedure is influenced under pressure (Graue, 2015).

Quantitative approach-This approach is analyzed with the help of statistical inferences. This data is needed for obtaining larger sample size. The quantitative data is collected with the help of surveys and observations. The data collected might be converted in diagrammatic format like graphs and charts to interpret present problems.

Project Activities

Gantt Chart