Assignment - BUS 231
Submitted To
Ms. Kohinoor Biswas
Assistant Professor
Department of Business Administration
East West University
Submitted by
Shadman Sakib Mahir
Id: 2019-1-10-042
Course: BUS 231, Sec: 4
Submission Date
3th August, 2021
1. The link between perception and individual decision making.
Individual decision making is influenced by one's perception of his or her current situation. To
understand the link between perception and individual decision making at first we must know
what perception is and what is individual decision making.
What is Perception: The word perception has originated from the Latin word perception, which
means gathering or receiving. It is the process of organization, identification, and interpretation
of sensory information to represent and understand the presented information or environment
(Schacter & Daniel, 2011). In practical life perception allows us to gather greater insight from an
unknown situation based on our experience. Perception is not only the passive receipt of the
sensory signals such as vision involving light striking the retina of the eye, but it's also shaped by
the recipient's learning, memory, expectation, and attention. Though the result of perception
depends on complex functions of the nervous system it feels voluntary as all the sensory
processing happens outside conscious awareness. Perception allows one to have a more
favourable feeling about an option out of multiple available. Because people’s behavior is based
on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself perception is very important. Also we
can say that the world that is perceived is the world that is behaviorally important.
What is decision making: We can say decision making is the process of assessment and
selection of a course of action among several possible alternative options available. Every
decision-making process produces a final choice, which may or may not prompt action. But we
can relate decision making with the process of problem-solving. By taking a decision one is
choosing one path from many predicting an expected outcome. When a discrepancy between
some current state of affairs and some desired state arises it is considered as a problem and a
problem can be tackled in different ways. Selecting a preffered course of action to solve this
problem is what decision making is.
The link between perception and individual decision making: In our everyday life we have to
take different decisions regularly. The decisions we take, define our course of action. Similarly
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in an organisational environment, responsible individuals have to take several decisions by this
they choose one from multiple alternatives. For example, top-level managers decide what will be
the long term strategic goal of the organisation. Mid-level and line managers decide about which
course of action will lead them to attain the organisational goal. Even the workers decide on how
to perform the work assigned to them. All these decisions are taken by individuals based on their
mental assessment of the situation and available options. Decision making occurs as a reaction to
a problem. For this, it requires the interpretation and assessment of information to predict the
outcome of every available option. To predict the result, most of the time it is not possible to find
out all required information, these variable factors are assessed by the individual and a decision
is taken based on his perception. In every step of the decision-making, perception plays a very
important role. Based on the perceived result the individual decision-makers compare the
available options and figure out the most preffered option.
Conclusion: Individuals behave based not on the way their external environment actually is but,
rather, on what they see or believe it to be. So pecption about the problem is more influential
than the actual problem itself when taking a decision. Finally, we can agree on the point that
throughout the entire decision process, perceptual distortions often surface that has the potential
to bias analysis and conclusions.
