Decision Making in Engineering Organizations: A Soft Action Research
Akinola Kila*
Royal School of Military Survey (DSGI-RSMS), Defence School of Geospatial Intelligence (DSGI) United Kingdom
*Corresponding Author: Akinola Kila,
Published: April 08, 2024
Abstract
A predominant approach for organisational inquiry is Action Research, but it comes in many forms and in some cases ends up as all research and no action or vice versa. A prevalent feature of all action research is the importance of meeting stakeholders in order to gain an understanding ‘from within’; This is specifically the case where Soft Action Research is the basis of the inquiry.
In this paper, the author reflects, briefly, upon the history of action research and the lessons learnt from the outcomes of a recent research he conducted using the Appreciative Inquiry Method (AIM). The author discusses the adoption of soft action research to investigate the domain of decision-making in complex engineering organizations in a bid for technical managers to learn about their own decision-making practices and optimise their decisions. The main study findings conducted across 2 different agencies were largely consistent and they include the following: superior officer’s view/opinion, technical know-how and integration with other departments are the most important to the technical managers when making their decisions. Within the concept of power-play in decision-making making - the superior officer’s influence was found to play a key role in addressing varying judgements or split opinions due to their experience, and also in getting management’s support on their critical decisions.
The lessons learnt from the researcher’s experiences will help inform other researchers and professionals using the Soft Systems Method of inquiry and open opportunities for others to explore further the merits and demerits of Soft Action Research.
The method discussed in this paper can be used to acquire quality data which can be used to develop training prompts for artificial intelligence applications and help develop a repository for multi-criteria decision analysis and algorithm/method for analysis of enterprise risk. The overall research is part of the organization’s management (CSTP-NASRDA) plan to improve decision-making amongst its technical managers.
Keywords: Appreciative Inquiry Method (AIM); Appreciation; Decision-making; Intuition; power-play
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