Background

ABC is a clothing manufacture in UK. It runs a very good business in past few years. With the growth of the company, now it needs to raise money form public. ABC can choose to go to New York Stock Exchange in US or go to Beijing Stock Exchange in China to issue stocks and raise money. What they would like to consider is how they can use six pathways by considering both cultural and ethical issues they will meet in two markets to make decisions. The essay will be mainly focus on using six pathways to make decision in China market. The right decisions will make investors invest on them and they can raise money from them.

Main body

Decision making can be made through six different ways. Throughput Model highlights the various pathways in which ethical reasoning can affect a decision may be helpful for future decision.

The first pathway is P-D (perception-decision). The fashion designer of ABC Company is a British. As what he thinks, fashion is to pursue personal’s beauty. So the clothes he designs are tightly shape or sexy which can represent a beauty of human body. The company sell them to China. As a result, it does not receive an expectation marketing share.

The reason is that the designer is based on its own perception (P) for fashion without considering Chinese traditional culture before making a decision (D). Clothing forming China is not as important as that in UK or US. Chinese pay more attention to the artistic conception not the character’s body. It can also be seen that Chinese and Americans have different values. Americans are more likely to realize their own value, while Chinese are more likely harmonious.

As the information is incomplete, or inadequately understood, only based on perception, the company could not make cloths a differentiation. They will make a wrong decision and will have no competitive advantages in China market. This will definitely not attract investors to invest on them.

The second pathway is P-J-D (perception-judgement-decision). Based on the same example, if the manager of ABC Company could make a judgement (J) on Chinese clothing culture before making decisions (D) based on designer’s perception, they may figure out the differentiations not standardisation. It could be successfully in China market. However, in this pathway, it ignores the benefits of information. Maybe the information obfuscates, so a decision-maker make final decision via judgement.

The third pathway is I-P-D (information-perception-decision). Assume ABC would like to build a factory in China. As it is new to China market, it is not familiar with rules and laws. Hence, ABC finds a Chinese agency it believes to be a professional to help the company deal with the building factory in China. This Chinese agency is doing business with real estate. So it suggests ABC build a factory in Beijing. ABC company views the agency as a knowledgeable individual who familiar on this topic and therefore follow the recommended place.

In this situation, there is no judgement because ABC Company itself is not familiar with Chinese policies. The information (I) the company acquire from agency influences how it viewed (P) building a factory, which led to the company’s final decision (D). Looking at this pathway, the judgment function is ignored when making a decision. It shows that adequate information set can assist in revising a person’s previous way of framing or viewing a particular problem before making a decision.

The fourth pathway is I-J-D (information-judgement-decision). Suppose that the designer has been collected a huge of information about Chinese culture. Green, red, black, white, yellow are basic colours. ABC is going to sell clothes to China in New Year Festival. Considering the specific festival, the company should make a judgement to choose one most suitable colour to sell. As red represents a passion and new beginning, they may chose red as the major colour. The truth is that the clothing is selling well in festival and ABC makes a lot of profits. The investors and shareholders are happy.

It can be seen that this pathway highlights information and judgement are useful in pursuing a decision choice without taking into consideration experiences or strategies. In this situation, the information source is weighted to compare, contrast before making a decision regarding selection. This pathway can enable a consistent and comparable way of programming of decision-making tasks.

The fifth pathway is P-I-J-D (perception-information-judgement-decision). Suppose that the economy in China is being better and better, especially after joining in the WTO. At the same time US economy is recovering. Suppose that ABC has a good reputation in clothing industry, both Chinese and Americans like its brand and have a great need. As this perception, the company then collect the relative market statistics in both US and China markets. After analysing, they find that the profits in Beijing area of China and in New York area of US are especially high. Hence, they make a judgement. Beijing and New York will be main markets for them to extend brand influences. They would like to increase supply in these two markets to satisfy peoples’ needs for fashion clothes. In this pathway, it suggests that the perception dominated the information then would be used to construct a judgement to decide on.

The sixth pathway is I-P-J-D (information-perception-judgement-decision). The information dominated the perception. ABC received some value information (I) from internal auditors’ recommendation. This information influenced manager’s perception regarding controlling their expenses. Their perception (P) which may include the non-financial information related to customers’ satisfaction or stakeholders’ interests. Then ABC will make a judgement before making a decision.

Anyway, the fifth and sixth pathways emphasize the interactions of all the major concepts, but in different combinations. The selection of one of these pathways depends on whether our perception or information source will be the initiate or the driver of the remaining major concepts before arriving at a decision.