SHOR Paradigm - An Effective Decision Management Model in situations of Uncertainty
SHOR
Paradigm
By
VIKRAM KARVE
“The man who insists upon seeing
with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides”
…Frederic
Amiel
Decision-making is so
pervasive that everyone, professionally or personally, is involved with making a
variety of decisions.
In today’s fast-moving world,
the timing of a decision is of paramount importance in many decision-making
situations.
In real life even the “perfect” decision may not be optimal
if it is made too late.
Information is a vital
resource in decision-making.
One of the most important characteristics
of successful managers is the ability to make the correct decision when
confronted with imperfect or insufficient information (i.e.)
Decision-making under conditions of
uncertainty.
In the context of
decision-processing, two realms or domains of uncertainty
are:
1. Information Input
Uncertainty which creates the need for hypothesis generation and
evaluation;
2.
Consequence-of-Action Uncertainty which creates the need for option
generation and evaluation.
THE SHOR
PARADIGM
A decision taxonomy: The
Stimulus – Hypothesis – Options – Response
(SHOR) paradigm, formulated by Wohl,
is useful in such decision situations.
The SHOR paradigm represents a
qualitative, descriptive, model as distinct from a quantitative, predictive
model, and comprises the following primary decision-making task
elements:
S: Stimulus Input Data
Processing
H: Hypothesis Generation, Hypothesis
Evaluation, Information Processing [What is?]
O: Option Generation, Option Evaluation,
Decision-Making [What if?]
R: Response Output Action
The SHOR paradigm is basically
an extension of the classical Stimulus – Response
(SR) Paradigm of behaviourist psychology.
The SHOR
paradigm provides explicitly for the necessity to deal with information input
uncertainty and consequence-of-action uncertainty, and helps us understand some
of the peculiar human factors that affect the quality of the decision-making and
answering questions such as:
What makes some
decision-makers perform better than others, especially in placing high-value
assets at risk, in business?
What are the sources
and dimensions of “poor” performance?
HUMAN ERRORS IN
DECISION-MAKING
Based on the SHOR Model, human
errors in decision-making appear to lie in four
domains:
(S) Stimulus: “I didn’t
know…”
(H) Hypothesis: “I didn’t
understand…”
(O) Options: “I didn’t
consider…”
(R) Response: “I didn’t
act…”
Stimulus based errors of the
type “I didn’t know…” result from lack or inadequacy of
information, the true inability to obtain
information.
“I didn’t
understand…” is the fundamental result of information input
uncertainty, while “I didn’t consider…” is the product of consequence-of-action
uncertainty.
It is possible to have
accessed all significant information, to have developed the correct hypothesis
and to have selected the best option and yet fail to take appropriate action.
The two possible reasons for the “I didn’t act…” type
of response error are:
1. Paralysis: This is a complete failure to act, the
pathological ‘observation of an inevitable course’ without intervention. It is
caused by an over-riding emotional struggle in which some internal factor is
being placed in conflict with the course of action selected by the
decision-maker. The final scene in the evergreen classic film The
Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) exemplifies such a
situation.
2. Misjudgement:
The decision-maker correctly decides what to do but errs in either or
both of the two dimensions – how [the specifics of the action]
or when [the timing of the
action].
Prediction of the critical
consequences of inaction may be of some help in dealing with paralysis
whilst the ability to perform sensitivity analyses may assist in
alleviating misjudgement.
Any Decision-Maker [and
designers of decision proccesors and aids] must address the four cardinal types
of errors epitomized by the SHOR paradigm: “I didn’t know…”, “I didn’t
understand…”, “I didn’t consider…” and “I didn’t
act…”
DECISION-MAKING IN
UNCERTAINTY
In the context of
decision-making in uncertainty, the conflict theory paradigm
developed by Janis and Mann may be apt.
This paradigm postulates five
patterns of coping behaviour which tends to occur in such
situations:
1. Unconflicted Adherence
in which the
uncertain, or risk, information is ignored and the decision-maker complacently
decides to continue whatever he has been doing.
2. Unconflicted Change
to a new course of action, where the decision-maker uncritically adopts
whichever new course of action is most salient, obvious or strongly
recommended.
3. Defensive
Avoidance in which the decision-maker evades conflict by
procrastinating, shifting responsibility to someone else, or constructing
wishful rationalisations and remaining selectively inattentive to corrective
information.
4. Hypervigilance
wherein the decision-maker searches frantically for a way out of the
dilemma and impulsively seizes upon a hastily contrived solution that seems to
promise immediate relief, overlooking the full range of consequences of his
choice because of emotional excitement, repetitive thinking and cognitive
constriction. In its most extreme form hypervigilance is referred to as
“panic”.
5. Concerned
Vigilance in which the decision-maker optimally processes pertinent
information, generates and evaluates hypotheses and options before selecting a
response as characterised by the SHOR paradigm.
In many real-life situations a
decision-maker cannot always keep waiting until the entire information-input and
consequence-of-action conditions are known a priori with certainty.
In most cases there is no such thing as “perfect”
certainty.
If a single most important
characteristic is crucial to a decision-maker in any field, it is the ability to
make optimal decisions in conditions of uncertainty.
Qualitative
descriptive models like the SHOR paradigm may prove useful in such
situations.
To quote Frederic Amiel once
again: “The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness
before he decides, never decides”.
VIKRAM
KARVE
Copyright © Vikram
Karve 2010
Vikram Karve has
asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be
identified as the author of this work.
http://vikramkarve.sulekha.com
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