The impact of individual decision-making process and job attitudes in organizational performance: The case of Parmalat

Abstract

Are we making the right decisions? This paper aims to investigate several themes related to the topic of Organizational Behaviour and the interesting relationship between humans and decision-making process. Starting from history of this field and the several theories that were developed as its contribution, this thesis illustrates the reasons for the importance of this theme and why it is still highly topical. Then, the natural next step for explaining extensively Organizational Behaviour is analysing and focusing on the concept of attitude and all its impacts on job features; topics such as job satisfaction, job involvement and organizational commitment are key points for having a comprehensive understanding of the subject. Furthermore, the possibility of redesigning jobs seems to be pivotal for improving performances and well-being of employees. In the following chapter, the paper will focus on the theme of individual decision-making process. It is one of the most controversial arguments of the last decades, where countless authors and mangers from a wide range of backgrounds have deepened some aspects and took starting point for their daily thoughts. Being aware of what mistakes humans fall into more often and which kind of mental shortcuts act on their brain, it is the first step for improving the final decisions. Themes such as availability heuristic, confirmation heuristic, representativeness heuristic and intuitive decision-making are crucial for every research that want to explore these topics. Moreover, this thesis will analyse if aspects like innovation and creativity are affected by the individual decision-making process; what firms will do in their future depend on their capability of understanding future trends, keeping up with the times and introducing innovations. As might be expected, also cultural factors have an impact on those mechanisms and several situations will be presented within this research. In the last chapter it is presented a real case of a company that, through strategic errors on its behavioural approach, had gone bankrupt. Parmalat is a case in point of how a bad governance, managerial hubris, poor strategic decision, over-expansion and ill-judged acquisitions and several bad personal decisions of its owner have led a past great company to a final failure. Finally, there is a section where are illustrated some proposals for reducing the frequency of these kind of scandals. The conclusion shows at what point the research in this field has arrived, highlighting some potential strategies for improving the decision-making process and for reducing the negative side of “human factors” in individuals’ decisions.