Decision-Making Styles of the Next Generation of Chinese Business Leaders

This study seeks to explore the relationships between decision-making styles, academic performance, and gender of educated Chinese millennials. As the millennial generation of college graduates in China comes of age, they will move into leadership roles in public and commercial organizations. They will have influence over considerable financial assets as well as economic and public policy which translates into global impact. There is a gap in the existing literature on the topic. This study utilized online self-report questionnaires to gather data, and the general decision-making style test to assess respondents' decision-making models culminating in correlation analysis and t-test. Based on the findings of related research, the authors hypothesized that there would be a difference in the decision-making styles based on gender and that there would be a significant difference in academic performance based on the decision-making styles. The findings may be of interest to a variety of those interested in decision-making styles, Chinese millennials, and future leaders of China.

Revisiting Sproles and Kendall’s Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI) in the 21st Century: A Case of Australian Consumers Decision-Making Styles in the Context of High and Low-Involvement Purchases

There has been considerable research on the investigation of Consumer Decision-Making Styles (CDMS). However, research designs suggested to date mainly replicate the original study by Sproles and Kendall (1986) proposing eight mental characteristics, the Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI). The research aims to develop this approach further and apply the CSI to different product involvement (e.g., high and low) and compare the relationship between product involvement and consumer decision-making styles. Data were collected from 208 Australian respondents using a self-administered questionnaire. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on the CSI adapted for high and low involvement purchases. The generalisability of the CSI was tested within this context. Results found significant differences between the two product categories and demonstrated a relationship between products and CDMS and that CDMS are governed by consumers’ perceived product involvement. Furthermore, the original CSI can still be a valuable measure to low involvement purchases; however, it is questionable and requires further modification in relation to high involvement purchases. For instance, the addition of new factors such as “environmental sustainability”, “innovation consciousness”, “corporate social responsibility”, etc. with the original scale would help understand CDMS effectively. The findings of this research will expand the scientific literature on the relationship between product involvement and CDMS. Knowing that Australians are ‘rational’ and ‘quality conscious’ buyers, managers can employ CDMS to analyse consumers’ needs and develop segmented marketing messages and strategies.

Proactive vs. reactive country responses to the COVID19 pandemic shock

The infection caused by SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, is characterized by an infectious period with either asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic phases, leading to a rapid surge of mild and severe cases putting national health systems under serious stress. To avoid their collapse, and in the absence of pharmacological treatments, during the early pandemic phase countries worldwide were forced to adopt strategies, from elimination to mitigation, based on non-pharmacological interventions which, in turn, overloaded social, educational and economic systems. To date, the heterogeneity and incompleteness of data sources does not allow to quantify the multifaceted impact of the pandemic at country level and, consequently, to compare the effectiveness of country responses. Here, we tackle this challenge from a complex systems perspective, proposing a model to evaluate the impact of systemic failures in response to the pandemic shock. We use health, behavioral and economic indicators for 44 countries to build a shock index quantifying responses in terms of robustness and resilience, highlighting the crucial advantage of proactive policy and decision making styles over reactive ones.

Analysis of the psychometric properties of the Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire in Colombian adolescents

Background/objective: Decision-making is a set of skills useful for daily functioning which allow people to perform their tasks and control objectives and goals, generating responses to the environment’s demands from their resources. Research and intervention with adolescents require reliable instruments to assess decision-making. The Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire (MDMQ) is an instrument that assesses decision-making styles and has been successfully validated in different cultural contexts. This study analysed the psychometric properties, construct validity (factorial, convergent, and discriminant), and predictive validity of the MDMQ in Colombian adolescents. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted in which 822 adolescents aged 14 to 18 years (Mage = 16.09, SD = 1.31, 33.7% girls), 410 from the regular school system (Mage = 15.50, SD = 1.29, 48.54% girls) and 412 adolescents from the Criminal Responsibility System (Mage = 16.6, SD = 1.04, 18.93% girls) participated. Decision-making styles, emotional intelligence, cognitive distortions, prosocial behaviour and antisocial behaviour were assessed. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), reliability, correlational and predictive analyses were performed. Results: The CFA showed satisfactory fit indices for the original model of four factors and 22 items. Sufficient reliability conditions were observed. The results indicated that rational decision-making (vigilance) is positively associated with emotional intelligence and influences prosocial behaviour. Negative decision-making styles are associated with cognitive distortions and influence antisocial behaviour. Conclusions: After analysing the psychometric properties, it is concluded that the MDMQ is a valid instrument to assess the decision-making styles of Colombian adolescents.

Mediating Effect of Materialism on the Relationship between Socialization and Consumer Decision-Making Styles

Despite the importance of materialism as an influencer of consumer value, scant research has focused on its underlying association with socialization and consumer decision-making styles (CDMS). Based on the stimulus–response model, this study examined whether the relationship between socialization and hedonistic and utilitarian types of CDMS is mediated by materialism. Survey data from a sample of 1,050 young consumers from six schools of the national capital region of India were used to test the hypothesis. Confirmatory factor analysis affirmed socialization agents, materialism and CDMS as second-order constructs. Regression analyses were used to assess mediation effects in the relationship between socialization and hedonistic and utilitarian CDMS. Results show that materialism partially mediates the relationship between socialization agents and hedonistic CDMS but fully mediates the relationship between socialization and utilitarian CDMS. The results offer implications for practice and policymakers concerning young consumers. To further generalize the findings of this study, youngsters from different age groups with varying economic backgrounds should be probed. This is the first empirical article to investigate the mediating role of materialism in the context of socialization and CDMS.

Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Managerial Decision-Making Styles: Multi-Mediation Analysis

Every individual makes decisions with a different mindset. Emotional-Intelligence is key for every leader working in the prevalent work settings in the era of technological revolution. Experts have categorized impact of emotional intelligence (EI) into Personal intelligence (PEI) and Social intelligence (SEI). The theoretical model of decision-making styles (DMS) includes the ‘People-oriented’ and ‘Task-oriented’ decision making styles (PDMS & TDMS). This study has investigated the comprehensively established models of relations between EI and DMS. The main research question was ‘How managers’ DMS is influenced by their PEI and SEI?’ The literature review was conducted by employing the thematic analysis. The cross-sectional survey approach was employed to collect data. The study investigated the emotional capacity of decision-makers at workplace which characterized by flooding of information, insecurity, and wider digital interactions – which result in the high levels of stress. This study is a spadework to further explore the same issue with different settings and data sources.