Otsustaja

Otsustaja is a Finnish noun that refers to a person who makes decisions or determines outcomes in a given situation. In English, the term is commonly translated as “decision-maker” or “decider.” The word is neutral in tone and is used across different fields to describe someone with the authority or responsibility to decide, such as in business, administration, or group processes. Depending on the context, an otsustaja may be a manager, a committee member, a project lead, or a public official.

In usage, otsustaja often denotes the individual or role that has final say in a decision. The term can apply to formal decision-making bodies as well as to everyday situations, where one person is chosen to decide a matter on behalf of others. The plural form is otsustajat, and the genitive is otsustajan; other inflected forms follow standard Finnish noun decline.

Morphology and form: otsustaja is a common Finnish agent-noun formed with the suffix -aja, indicating someone who performs the action implied by the root. It declines like a regular first-stem noun (e.g., nominative plural otsustajat, partitive otsustajia).

Related terms include päätöksentekijä (Finnish for “decision-maker” with emphasis on the act of making decisions) and other context-specific titles that denote authority to decide. Otsustaja is most widely used in descriptive or explanatory writing to identify who holds decision-making power in a given setting.