Making Decisions Well and Badly: How Stakeholders’ Discussions Influence Individual Executives’ Decision Confidence and Competence
Making Tough Decisions Well and Badly: Framing, Deciding, Implementing, Assessing
ISBN: 978-1-78635-120-3, eISBN: 978-1-78635-119-7
Publication date: 12 October 2016
Abstract
This chapter presents a new model for developing and assessing the decision competencies of executive decision-makers. Prior models consider individual and group decision-making but neglect to consider the impact of group-interactive decision-making on real-world problem-solving and sense-making activities. In the present study experimental protocols represent an approximation of a realistic business decision-making process, where decision-makers consult with groups of stakeholders and then make decisions on their own. The model juxtaposes decision competence with the level of decision confidence with which decisions are made. The study furnishes an objective test for this phenomenon, resulting in quantitative empirical evidence of either follow-the-herd (FTH) behavior, or group-forged individual decisions (GFID), or follow-my-own-mind (FMOM) individual decision behavior. The study investigates the impact of group-interactive decision processes on hubristic behavior – decision-makers who make poor/wrong decisions, but remain confident in their choices, judgments, and decisions. The resulting management decision competency model provides an inter-disciplinary matrix, of benefit to human resource development specialists, and provides scholars in organizational behavior and leadership development with guidance for current and future research into group dynamics and decision competencies.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the support of colleagues at the University of Waikato, Victoria University of Wellington, Lincoln University, Massey University and Auckland University of Technology for their help with the experiments and decision laboratories and in commenting on early drafts of the paper.
Citation
de Villiers, R., Hankin, R. and Woodside, A.G. (2016), "Making Decisions Well and Badly: How Stakeholders’ Discussions Influence Individual Executives’ Decision Confidence and Competence", Making Tough Decisions Well and Badly: Framing, Deciding, Implementing, Assessing (Advances in Business Marketing and Purchasing, Vol. 24), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 87-116. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1069-096420160000024006
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited