Conclusions

The quality of human decisions and, consequently, the quality of the decisions made by organizations, rests substantially on the following elements: the presence of uncertainty, the existence of asymmetric information, the skills of the decisors, the time necessary to reach a decision and the level of identification of the decisors with the goal pursued by the organization. In fact, these elements can be considered inputs for the production of the output represented by the decision. The quality of the decision (that is, its correctness) can therefore be improved by increasing the quality of the inputs. For example, the availability of greater and better information contributes, coeteris paribus, to the improved quality of the decision. However, increasing the quality and the quantity of inputs incurs additional costs. Thus, a decisor with better skills has a greater probability to choose correctly, coeteris paribus, but entails a larger salary. Each decision to be made implies a trade-off between the increment of the quality of the inputs and the increased cost incurred to finance the growth of quality. Due to this cost and to the scarcity of available resources, human decisions are necessarily subject to errors.