Human Errors in Decision Making- Analysis of two historical cases

Journal article, 2008

Abstract: Decisions are the core transactions of organizations and have a profound influence on organizations achievement. Decisions can be described as a series of behavioural reactions in favour of something, a certain action where there is no doubt, or a judgment that is made among several alternatives. In most situations persons based on personal judgment make decisions. In such situations decision makers may not pay enough attention to some important factors. However, ignoring such factors during the process of decision-making, either they are obvious or hidden, might cause failure of the decision followed by unwanted consequences. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify the most important human errors resulting failure of a decision in evaluation of the alternatives in the process of decision-making. Two case studies were selected from the literature and analyzed to find the human errors contribute to decision fail. Then the analysis of human errors was linked with mental models in evaluation of alternative step. The results of the study showed that five human errors occur in the evaluation of alternatives step; ignorance or neglect, overconfidence, underestimate, moral and fail to see, which led to un-achievement of objectives.