An empirical investigation on quality of information used for decision making in the Department of Social Development, Bojanala District
Abstract
An organisation depends on quality information for effective operations and decision
making, thus quality in management decision plays a vital role; and there is a direct and
strong relationship between the quality of information used by a decision maker and
decision performance. Hence lnforrnation is not an isolated resource, but it flows within
organisation and, consequently, its quality must be tackled as an organisational issue
(Caballero et al., 2008). Given these arguments, information quality should be a process
intertwined to all business core processes because it is a means to an end; and indirectly
impacts the bottom line of an organisation. This is not a fact at Department of Social
Development, Bojanala District were Information Quality is not prioritised and integrated
within all programs it delivers, hence this study is to investigate the impact that information
quality has on managerial decisions within a financial Services Firm. In this study, the
primary data will be collected by means of survey using a structured questionnaire. A
survey will be conducted to test the association between information quality and
managerial decisions, with an aim to establish the extent to which the information quality
impact on managerial decisions. In the public sector, competition is not aimed at winning
the market, but ensuring that service provisions are improved because, the public sector
bodies must answer to the Ministers and Government secretaries and the citizens.
Legislative mechanism and budgetary constraints also determine the scope of decision
making. Therefore organisation must compare its performance against those of similar
organisation and its past records. Moreover they may have reasons to work together or
collaborate in different areas, in order to achieve their common objective (McBride ct al.,
20 13). The findings of this research reveals that managers are aware of Information Quality
and they do make decisions but the efficiency and consistency is not understood by many
hence like any other organisation the department is faced with changes in the environment
which brings along a new wave of challenges. The Department has to continually adapt its
strategies and programmes to fit these managerial decision making changes. An assessment
of the environment then becomes a continuous process. In order for the department to
thrive it will need competent and skilled human resources. The Department of Social
Development Bojanala District should therefore invest in fruitful Information development
programmes if it plans to win or manage these challenges.