Examining managerial decision making process in Information technology shared services in Public sector entities from an activity theory perspective
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Abstract
For many organisations (both in the private and public sector), the managers must make crucial decisions on a daily basis. The success of the entities that they run is hinged on how well their decisions are undertaken The managers of these public sector bodies must consider a number of factors in their quest to working with other public or private sector bodies. These factors may be internal, external and personal. The managers of the public sector bodies must be open to the „Sunshine laws‟ and hence, for them, decision making is in itself a milestone. Their experience, qualifications, surrounding teams, political intricacies, community being served, the media and intuition all play a key role in making such decisions. Through the use of case studies developed from the data gathered from a number of local authorities this discussion has examined the position of decision making is an artefact and an object within the broad framework of Activity theory. This theory mainly identifies decision making as an artefact and therefore in this discussion, the researcher has made attempt to look at this issue from two perspectives thereby highlighting an area of Activity theory that needs to be debated again. Another area of contribution has been on the issue of decision making as a process and an outcome. This paper explains the complexity of making decision in the public sector hence making it a process and an outcome. Public sector managers should consider their decisions as being supporting to achieve objectives and as objectives themselves.