A Case Study of the Flow of Information in Organisational Decision Making The Social Movement "Världsbutikerna för Rättvis Handel"

Sammanfattning: The Swedish social movement "Världsbutikerna för Rättvis Handel" VB has undergone a strategic decision process from October 2000 to April 2001. VB is a network of 22 World Shops with a chosen national board. I have studied which functions the decision process has to fulfil and what this means for the information distribution on the decision inside VB. For this I have carried out observations, interviews and sent a questionnaire to all World Shops. Theoretically the information network can be totally inclusive and democratic. In reality there has been much less communication. According to Daft and Lengels 1984 theory of information richness, strategic decision makers need rich media to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty. The environment as well as the organisation of VB is ambiguous, but rich media are not always possible because of a lack of time, money and energy of the participants in VB. Because of ambiguity in the young network, World Shops do not trust VBs board to have the same goals as they have. They demand control over the whole decision process, which entails detailed information at each point, feedback possibilities and time for discussion on a local level. A decision is legitimate only when it is taken in a democratic process. This can contrast with the needs in a rational decision making procedure. To solve the conflict, the socialising functions of the decision making process need to be emphasised. They need rich information.