نشریه اندیشه مدیریت راهبردی
پیاپی 1 (بهار و تابستان 1386)

A brief look at both individual and organizational activities shows that decision-making is an inseparable part of each. Experts have attempted to explain the quality and cause of this important phenomenon. The result is the descriptive and prescriptive approaches that have looked upon decision-making from two different standpoints.One theory which in mid - eighties and by adopting a descriptive approach defied other prescriptive models and views was the image theory. This is an attempt to explain the manner of real decision-making by individuals. According to this, the decision-maker has images of himself, his past, present and future. The way these images develop, their transformation and their interrelationships form the main bases of decision-making at both individual and organizational levels. The image theory takes decision-making as the result of how the structure, combination, coordination and cohesion of "self-image", projectiveness, planned image, and "executing image" are formed.

This article first enumerates factors affecting the decision-making, those which are mostly related to personality influenced by cultures and sub-cultures dominating the individual’s life, such as possessing internal and external control agents, believing in or shunning ambiguities, and its comparison with a belief in fatalism or free will and the effect of these beliefs and traits on the personality. It then demonstrates that these beliefs cause individuals to have different characteristics. Some are active, and some passive. Some are keen to discover problems and solve them and change the existing situation to the desired one, but some are totally uninterested. There are some who can make decisions and some who cannot.The author has tried to make a comparative study and turn to the genuine Islamic culture as manifested in the Quran, Prophet’s tradition, and Shiite way of life, and has made a case study of Ohod battle and Quranic verses related to the issue to demonstrate the fact that by dismissing fatalism while trusting God’s blessing, a Moslem manager could be distinguished from others. In sum, managers can make sound decisions by relying on Shiite culture, self-confidence, rational thinking, consulting the wise people and above all trusting in God.

A viable decision-making is a rational one so it is included in practical rationality. Practical rationality is based on theoretical rationality, which means connection with that via decision-making. Limitations of time and human faculties show the impossibility of linking decision-making to theoretical and practical rationality by adopting an idealistic approach. An objective stance is needed here. Tending towards the ideal, despite the impossibility of reaching it, sheds light on the status of counselling in decision-making. This status would necessitate special characteristics for the parties involved and can provide the possibility of a mechanized counselling.

Despite emphases placed by the Constitution, on the necessity of achieving social justice, we cannot witness any practical signs of it in our society yet. To analyze the causes of this failure, we can assume the following: - The law is written disregarding its practicality. - Due to the critical situation of the country in the last two decades, the necessary requirements for implementing that law are not yet met. - The law is not sufficiently protected by sanctions. It is not utilized as a criterion for assessing governments’ performances, hence underestimated. - To survive, those in power have to satisfy their political supporters, therefore the implementation of the law is affected by various political and factional interests. - To fulfil its objectives, the Constitution needs elaboration with the help of the statute law, executive policies, etc. The insufficiency of this creates missing links in the hierarchy of law-making down to its execution. - The important point is that before any attempt to eliminate executive obstacles in the way of reaching social justice, it would be unwise to speak of the impossibility of its implementation.

The modern world is one of image and media. Ordinarily, three periods are distinguished for the transmission of concepts, namely, the linguistic transmission period, the written and the image periods. Presently, the most efficient and sustaining means of expressing opinions and influencing the public opinion is "image". Every individual receives most of his information through visual media. The west knows the importance and power of picture technologies well enough and utilizes it in all its forms. Knowing the fact that the role of culture in strategic decisions is of great import, it is highly advisable to take notice of the implicit meaning of images and media and their impact on decision-making. This, however, has been neglected in social and managerial analyses. The article, therefore, examines the issue of media management and the role of decision-making in it, and refers to the image theory by mentioning some of the actual examples worldwide.

By considering the foreign policy as a "system" the decision-making process turns out a "sub-system" whose investigation can significantly influence the foreign policy. Numerous studies and researches have been done about various political events such as decision-making processes (one example is David Easton’s work on the development of system concept). Despite the traditional view of diplomacy as "an instrument for executing foreign policy", there are some more modern views that offer the concept of "public diplomacy" and define it as "influencing public views in order to shape and execute foreign policies including aspects which go beyond the traditional diplomacy". The main question of the research is whether public diplomacy-in the above sense-can have any effect on the decision-making process in foreign policy. The author tries to discuss aspects of public diplomacy impact on decision-making process in foreign policy and ultimately offer a model of it by giving a definition for "public diplomacy" after revising the present opinions and utilizing "the multi-dimensional model of public policy-making".

Some take management as equal to decision–making, since a major part of a manager’s duty to conduct an organization is to make appropriate decisions in different conditions. Every manager makes a rational decision according to the situations he is involved in. In management theories, there exist a lot of issues dealing with decision – making and this article is to survey the roots of rationality there. First, there is a definition of reason and rationality. Then comes a historical background of the two as understood by ancient, medieval and later philosophers. Also, different kinds of rationality in social and philosophical discourses are explained. Max Weber’s special status in such discourses and his idea of bureaucracy makes us dedsicate part of the discussion to him. Furthermore, an instance of rationalization of societies, what we may call the MacDonald type process in the world, is given. Finally, the status of rationality in the theory of organization and especially the decision–making issues are examined.