自考英语二电子版及翻译

Unit One What Is a Decision ?

何为决策?

A decision is a choice made from among alternative courses of action that are available. The purpose of making a decision is to establish and achieve organizational goals and objectives. The reason for making a decision is that a problem exists, goals or objectives are wrong, or something is standing in the way of accomplishing them.

决策是一种选择，来自可以获得的、任择其一的行动步骤。作决策的意图是要确立和实现机构的目标和目的。作决策的原因是有问题存在、目标和目的不正确、或者有某种东西妨碍目标或目的的实现。

Thus the decision-making process is fundamental to management. Almost everything a manager does involves decisions, indeed, some suggest that the management process is decision making. Although managers cannot predict the future, many of their decisions require that they consider possible future events. Often managers must make a best guess at what the future will be and try to leave as little as possible to chance, but since uncertainty is always there, risk accompanies decisions . Sometimes the consequence s of a poor decision are slight; at other times they are serious.

因此，作决策的过程对管理人员来说至关重要。管理者所做的每件事几乎

都与决策有关，事实上，有些人认为管理过程就是作决策。尽管管理者不能预测未来，但他们所作的许多决策都要求他们考虑将来可能发生的事情。通常情况下，管理者必须对未来情况作出最佳估测，并且努力要使偶然事件尽可能少地发生，但是，由于不确定的因素一直存在，所以，决策总是与风险为伴。有时候，拙劣决策的后果并不严重，但在另外一些时候则是非常严重了。

Choice is the opportunity to select among alternatives. If there is no choice, there is no decision to be made. Decision making is the process of choosing, and many decisions have a broad range of choice. For example, a student may be able to choose among a number of different courses in order to implement the decision to obtain a college degree. For managers, every decision has constraints based on policies, procedures, laws, precedents, and the like. These constraints exist at all levels of the organization.

选择是指从多个可能性中挑选的机会。如果没有选择，就毋须作决策。作决策就是挑选的过程，许多决策的选择范围很广。例如，一个学生为了获得学位，他可能会从许多不同的课程中选择从而作出决策。对管理者来说，每项决策都受到基于政策、程序、法律、惯例等等因素的制约，这些制约存在于各个层次的机构中。

Alternatives are the possible courses of action from which choices can be made. If there are no alternatives, there is no choice and, therefore, no decision. If no alternatives are seen, often it means that a thorough job of

examining the problems has not been done. For example, managers sometimes treat problems in an either/or fashion; this is their way of simplifying complex problems. But the tendency to simplify blind s them to other alternatives.

抉择是从中可以作出选择的可能的行动步骤。假如没有可供选择的可能性，这就意味着没有做过对问题进行彻底调查的工作。例如，管理者有时用两者择一的方式来处理问题，即他们简化复杂问题的手法。但是，这种简化的倾向使他们看不到其他可供选择的可能性。

At the managerial level, decision making includes limiting alternatives as well as identify ing them, and the range is from highly limited to practically unlimited.

在管理层，作决策包括了限定和鉴别可供选择的可能性，其限定范围从非常有限到基本无限。

Decision makers must have some way of determining which of several alternatives is best —that is, which contributes the most to the achievement of organizational goals. An organizational goal is an end or a state of affairs the organization seeks to reach. Because individuals (and organizations) frequently have different ideas about how to attain the goals, the best choice may depend on who makes the decision. Frequently, departments or units within an organization make decisions that are good for them individually but that are less than optimal for the larger organization. Called