Organizational decision taking: analyzing the use of information by managers by the symbolic via

Abstract

The informational explosion resulting from technological development has become a challenge for organizations, especially in decision-making processes, because having the relevant information at the right time has gone from a simple cliché to a competitive edge. However, understanding the decision-making process of a manager involved in this context presupposes a greater complexity than the usual skills profiles can express. In this sense, a study was developed at the doctoral level in order to understand the unconscious motivations that influence the organizational decision-making dynamics, focusing on the use of information to support decision making. For that, we used methods that approach the symbolic dimensions based on the assumptions of Carl Jung's analytical psychology and on Gilbert Durand's Imaginary Anthropological Structures, for the analysis of the contents underlying the visible behaviors of managers in a situation of strategic decision-making. In this referential, we sought to relate, in the decision-making process, the perception of reality, coping with the anguish resulting from this process and the determination of information search and use behaviors to support decision making. The research, which consisted of multiple case studies with eleven managers from different organizations, took place in 2017 and had as methodological instruments a semi-structured interview, with the insertion of symbolic elements and the technique of the critical incident, and subsequent application of the Archetypal Test of Nine Elements. It was possible to verify, through the use of the imaginary as an object on which a hermeneutic applies, the aspects that permeate the visible behaviors in the decision process, through the identification of the mythical micro-universes of the managers and of the creative manifestation present in the narrative of these subjects. It was perceived through the symbolic way how information can permeate this process and that the field of studies of information users can draw on perspectives from the Anthropology of Imaginary and Analytical Psychology to understand the motivations intrinsic to the informational and infocommunicational phenomena. It is considered that the present research made it possible to validate the use of alternative instruments and to ratify the perception that the use of information linked to the organizational decision-making process can be extended beyond the perspective of behavioral models or static concepts. It is believed that this perspective can collaborate to broaden the disciplinary boundaries of Information Science, incorporating new concepts in the field

Keywords:
Decision making; Strategic information; Symbolic-affective dimension; Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary; Behaviors and informational practices