Beyond a Traditional Budgeting Orientation: towards a Commitment to General Decision Assurance (gda)

This paper critically evaluates and questions the primacy of accounting-based budget data in the decision-making process (usually at the strategic management level) within organisations. It proposes a theoretical synthesis of Peirce’s account of social inquiry and Habermas’ communicative action rationality to construct an epistemically robust, collectively oriented decision-making framework. The resulting General Decision Assurance (GDA) theory is argued to have the potential to significantly improve the decision-making process utilised by organisations in the emerging knowledge economies. GDA theory postulates that optimal decision-making which a particular group of decision makers can construct in a world of uncertainty and risk is a pragmatic, recursive and democratised process. The theory minimises the role of power and authority, focuses on the force of the ‘better argument’ and results in the selection of an epistemic ‘best-bet’ decision option, which is subjected to a rigorous, quantitative and qualitative performance-measure monitoring and feedback process.