Influence of age and gender on decision-making models and leadership styles of non-profit executives in Texas, USA

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis C. Uzonwanne
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Leadership Styles ◽  
Leadership Style ◽  
Business Strategies ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Decision Making Models

Purpose The purpose of this study is to fill the gap by investigating the relationship between age and other demographics on decision-making and leadership styles of executives in the non-profit sector. Design/methodology/approach This study is a quantitative research using correlation analysis and analysis of variance. The quantitative approach establishes facts, makes predictions and tests stated hypothesis and used the Pearson correlation coefficient, the ANOVA and the two-way analysis of variance. This study used surveys to collect data. Findings H1 states that there will be no significant difference in the decision-making models used among non-profit organizational leaders (rational, intuitive, dependent, spontaneous and avoidant) based on demographic variables: gender and age. H2 states that there will be no significant difference in the leadership style used among non-profit organizational executives (selling, telling, delegating and participating) and different dimensions of demographic variables: gender and age. Research limitations/implications This study explored the relationship between the demographics, age and gender and the decision-making models (rational, intuitive, dependent, spontaneous and avoidant) and leadership styles (selling, telling, delegating and participating) of executives in non-profit organizations. The age of the executives also showed to be important factors that influenced executive’s leadership styles and decision-making models as well. Practical implications Rational decision-making as reflected to in this study has been used by older, possibly more experienced non-profit executives. This model is favorable towards making decisions on complicated issues. The final choice rational decision-makers select will maximize the outcome; it is assumed that the decision-maker will choose the alternative that rates the highest and get the maximum benefits (Robbins and Decenzo, 2003, pp. 141-142). The researcher suggests that non-profit executives, especially the younger executives, should attend management and leadership conferences that focus on rational decision-making models as concerns business strategies and making the best choices based on possible alternatives. Social implications Rational decision-making as reflected to in this study has been used by older, possibly more experienced non-profit executives. This model is favorable towards making decisions on complicated issues. The final choice rational decision-makers select will maximize the outcome; it is assumed that the decision-maker will choose the alternative that rates the highest and get the maximum benefits (Robbins and Decenzo, 2003, pp. 141-142). The researcher suggests that non-profit executives, especially the younger executives, should attend management and leadership conferences that focus on rational decision-making models as concerns business strategies and making the best choices based on possible alternatives. Originality/value This is an original piece of research that contributes to the literature on leadership style.

Evidence on rationality and behavioural biases in investment decision making

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 270-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satish Kumar ◽  
Nisha Goyal
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Path Model ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Individual Investors ◽  
Significant Implication ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between rational decision-making and behavioural biases among individual investors in India, as well as to examine the influence of demographic variables on rational decision-making process and how those differences manifest themselves in the form of behavioural biases. Design/methodology/approach Using a structured questionnaire, a total of 386 valid responses have been collected from May to October 2015. Statistical techniques like t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Fisher’s least significant difference (LSD) test have been used in this study. Structural equation modelling (SEM) has been used to analyse the relationship between rational decision-making and behavioural biases. Findings The findings show that the structural path model closely fits the sample data, indicating investors follow a rational decision-making process while investing. However, behavioural biases also arise in different stages of the decision-making process. It further explores that gender and income have a significant difference with respect to rational decision-making process. Male investors are more prone to overconfidence and herding bias in India. Research limitations/implications The findings of the study have significant implication for the individual investors. It is recommended that if individuals are aware about the biases, they may become alert before taking irrational investment decisions. Originality/value To best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is a first of its kind to investigate the relationship between rational decision-making and behavioural biases among individual investors in India.

Fast or slow? Decision-making styles in small family and nonfamily firms

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duarte Pimentel ◽  
Marc Scholten ◽  
Joao Pedro Couto
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Family Firms ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Family Participation ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Small Family ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Decision Making Styles

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore differences in the decision-making styles between family and nonfamily firms, while assessing how family participation relates to the use of decision-making styles within family firms. Design/methodology/approach The empirical evidence is provided by a sample of 155 firms, located in the Azores, Portugal, 82 family controlled and 73 nonfamily controlled firms. All firms included in the sample are small-sized privately owned enterprises. Business owners and managers responded to a decision-making styles questionnaire, followed, in the case of family firms, by the report of the number of family members actively involved in the business. Findings Results show that there are no differences in the use of rational decision making between family and nonfamily firms. However, nonfamily firms show higher levels of experiential decision making than family firms. Results also show that family participation plays a key role in guiding the decisional process, by promoting the use experiential decisions and inhibiting the adoption of a rational decision-making styles in family firms. Research limitations/implications From a theoretical perspective, this study opens the door to new research on an under investigated topic in the family business literature. It contributes with initial notions that may help profile the decisional style within small family firms, while revealing how family participation affects it. Thus, creating a fertile ground of discussion that can be an impulse for more research in this area. Practical implications From an applied perspective, assessing the influence of family participation in the adoption of a decisional style is potentially valuable for practitioners as well as for owners and managers. Providing them with clues that may help them better understand the basis of their decisions which can benefit their relations with other family members, as with customers, partners and suppliers that play a key role in the firm’s growth, profitability and adaptability. Social implications From a social point of view, showing that family firms tend to be rational in their decisions may help create a more reputable and credible image surrounding these firms that are sometimes perceived as less professional than nonfamily firms. Thus, a more solid reputability can help improve their relationship with important partner institutions (e.g. financial, governmental), becoming more attractive to private and public investment, which can translate into win-win situations. Originality/value This study responds to a gap in the literature, by exploring the use of experiential vs rational decision-making styles in small family and nonfamily firms. This study also contributes to the understanding of the decision making within family firms, by assessing the role of family participation in the adoption of a decisional style.

scholarly journals Gauging the capacity for concurrent motor planning in human fMRI with information constraints in bounded rational decision-making models

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Schach ◽  
Axel Lindner ◽  
Daniel Alexander Braun
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Motor Planning ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Single Action ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Optimal Information ◽  
Decision Making Models ◽  
Information Constraints ◽  
Concurrent Planning

While traditional theories of sensorimotor processing have often assumed a serial decision-making pipeline, more recent approaches have suggested that multiple actions may be planned concurrently and vie for execution. As most of the evidence for the latter comes from monkeys, here we study concurrent prospective motor planning in humans by recording functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a sequence planning task with multiple potential targets. We find that fMRI activity in premotor and parietal brain areas modulates both with the sequence complexity and the number of targets. We test the hypothesis that fMRI activity is best explained by concurrent planning as opposed to the incomplete determination of a single action plan. We devise a bounded rationality model with information constraints that optimally assigns information resources for planning and memory for this task and determine predicted information profiles according to the two hypotheses. When regressing fMRI activity using this model, we find that the concurrent planning strategy provides a significantly better explanation of the fMRI modulation profile. Moreover, we find that concurrent planning is limited for most subjects, as expressed by the best fitting information capacities. We conclude that bounded rational decision-making models allow relating both behavior and neural representations to utilitarian task descriptions based on bounded optimal information-processing assumptions.

Bureaucratizing Democracy, Democratizing Bureaucracy

2000 ◽  
Vol 25 (04) ◽  
pp. 1077-1109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Nelson Espeland
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Development Agency ◽  
Water Development ◽  
Bureau Of Reclamation ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Decision Making Models ◽  
The Relationship

This article analyzes the relationship between how rationality is conceived and how democracy is practiced in the Bureau of Reclamation, a water development agency in the Department of Interior. The efforts of some inside the agency to institutionalize rational decision-making models, partly in response to new environmental law, expanded the number and range of interest groups that participated in its decisions fry incorporating their preferences into their models for evaluating plans. But the terms under which people could express their values and interests were strictly controlled in ways that some felt misrepresented their concerns. How we conceive of rationality has important implications for how and which people are included in bureaucratic decision making.

Contingent use of rational, intuitive and political decision-making in R&D

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 997-1020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linn Marie Kolbe ◽  
Bart Bossink ◽  
Ard-Pieter de Man
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Innovation Process ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Political Decision Making ◽  
Over Time

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into the contingent use of rational, intuitive and political decision-making in R&D. Design/methodology/approach This research is based on a study in an R&D department of a multinational high-tech firm in the Netherlands. The study consists of a case study design, focusing on four embedded cases, longitudinally studying each case. Findings The literature distinguishes three dimensions of innovation decision-making processes: rational, intuitive and political. By studying these interwoven dimensions over time, this study finds that the dominant use of each of these dimensions differs across the innovation process. There is an emphasis on intuitive decision-making in an early phase, followed by more emphasis on political decision-making, and moving to more emphasis on rational decision-making in a later phase of the R&D process. Furthermore, the predominant choice in a specific innovation phase for one of the three decision-making dimensions is influenced by the decision-making dimension that is dominantly employed in the preceding phase. Research limitations/implications This study contributes to the innovation decision-making literature by developing and applying a model that distinguishes rational, intuitive and political decision-making dimensions, the interactions among these dimensions in innovation decision-making in R&D, and the contingency of these dimensions upon the innovation phase. It calls for further research into the contingent nature of innovation decision-making processes. Practical implications For practitioners this study has two relevant insights. First it highlights the importance and usefulness of intuitive and political decision-making in addition to the prevailing emphasis on rational decision-making. Second, practitioners may be more alert to consciously changing their dominant decision-making approach across the phases of the innovation process. Third, companies may adjust their human resource policies to this study’s findings. Originality/value The literature on rational, intuitive and political decision-making is quite extensive. However, research has hardly studied how these decision-making dimensions develop in conjunction, and over time. This paper reports on a first study to do so and finds that the dominant use of these dimensions is contingent upon the phase of the R&D process and on the decision-making dimensions used in earlier phases. The study suggests that using a contingency approach can help to further integrate the debate in research and practice.

Private tutoring and the subjective rationalities of parents: the experiences in South Korea and Singapore

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlene Tan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Private Tutoring ◽  
Original Model ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Process And Outcome ◽  
Shed Light

PurposeThis article proposes a model of subjective rationalities to shed light on the global phenomenon of parental reliance on private tutoring for their children. The model is illustrated using the examples of the rational decision-making process and outcome of parents with regards to enrolling their children in private tutoring in South Korea and Singapore.Design/methodology/approachThis is a theoretical paper that relies on a critical review of official documents, academic publications and newspaper reports.FindingsThis article proposes an original model to shed light on the global phenomenon of parental reliance on private tutoring for their children. The model highlights the following: the dynamic interactions between parents, education policy and private tutoring; the active role of private tutoring providers; and the socio-culturally embedded and complex nature of educational decisions.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a conceptual paper that proposes a theoretical model, so there is no empirical data.Originality/valueThis article fills an existing research gap on the dynamic interactions between the parents, education policy and private tutoring. It offers an original model that illuminates the rational decision-making process and outcome of parents that pertains to private tutoring for their children.

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