Control Options in Managing Strategic Decision-making Processes

Abstract

Top decision making processes are generally depicted as chaotic, unstructured, incremental or spasmodic, and protracted. In this article it is shown, based on data from 25 strategic decision processes from 12 organizations in three industry sectors, that, within certain limits, there certainly are control options in strategic decision-making processes. In addition, their use tums out to be profitable. The analyses of patterns in the use of control dimensions in the 25 cases leads to a typology of four types of decision models or strategies: the neo-rational model (n = 3), the bureaucratic model (n = 4), the arena model (n = 8) and the open-end model (n = 10). This empirical typology confirms earlier typologies based on literature.

The use of control strategies is shown to vary across industry sectors and topics of decisions and have adifferential effect. It is concluded that context and content variables have either a selection effect (some strategies do not occur in some sectors) or a optimization effect (some strategies are more effective than others in a given context).     

Perseverative thought: a robust predictor of response to emotional challenge in generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) frequently co-occur, yet the reasons for their comorbidity remain poorly understood. In the present experiment, we tested whether a tendency to engage in negative, repetitive thinking constitutes a common risk process for the two disorders. A mixed sample of adults with comorbid GAD–MDD (n = 50), GAD only (n = 35), MDD only (n = 34), or no lifetime psychopathology (n = 35) was administered noncontingent failure and success feedback on consecutive performance tasks. Perseverative thought (PT), measured by negative thought intrusions during a baseline period of focused breathing, emerged as a powerful prospective predictor of responses to this experimental challenge. Participants reporting more frequent negative thought intrusions at baseline, irrespective of thought content or diagnostic status, exhibited a stronger negative response to failure that persisted even after subsequent success. Higher PT over the course of the experiment was associated with later behavioral avoidance, with negative affect and other traits closely linked to anxiety and depression, and with the presence and severity of GAD and MDD. These findings provide evidence for a broadly-defined PT trait that is shared by GAD and MDD and contributes to adverse outcomes in these disorders.     

When do peers influence adolescent males' risk taking? Examining decision making under conditions of risk and ambiguity

Risk taking is highly prevalent among adolescent males, and a range of studies have shown that decisions become riskier if a peer is present. However, previous studies have typically provided participants with explicit probabilities of risk in each situation. This does not accurately reflect adolescents' real‐world risk taking, where decisions are made in ambiguous situations alongside their peers. Aiming for a more ecologically valid design, the present experiment manipulated situational ambiguity and examined its interplay with group decision making and developmental factors. Adolescent males (N = 202) aged 12–15 completed a “Wheel of Fortune” task and then self‐reported their score, presenting an opportunity to cheat as a measure of antisocial risk taking. As predicted, adolescents were more likely to take risks when probabilities were ambiguous rather than explicit. Further, higher levels of gambling choices were made by groups in ambiguous, but not risk situations. Age significantly predicted gambling in ambiguous conditions, whereas developmental dispositions (risk perception, reward sensitivity, and inhibitory control) did not play a role. Findings provide an insight into the social and situational conditions under which adolescent males engage in reckless behavior.     

By-Person Factor Analysis in Clinical Ethical Decision Making: Q Methodology in End-of-Life Care Decisions

Objective: To determine the usefulness of Q methodology to locate and describe shared subjective influences on clinical decision making among participant physicians using hypothetical cases containing common ethical issues.

Design: Qualitative study using by-person factor analysis of subjective Q sort data matrix.

Setting: University medical center.

Participants: Convenience sample of internal medicine attending physicians and house staff (n = 35) at one midwestern academic health sciences center.

Interventions: Presented with four hypothetical cases involving urgent decision making near the end of life, participants selected one of three specific clinical actions offered for each case. Immediately afterward and while considering their decision, each respondent sorted twenty-five subjective self-referent items in terms of the influence of each statement on their decision-making process. By-person factor analysis, where participants are defined as variates, yielded information about the attitudinal background the physicians brought to their consideration of each hypothetical case. We performed a second-order factor analysis on all of the subjective viewpoints to determine if a smaller core of shared attitudes existed across some or all of the four case vignettes. Factor scores for each item and post-sort comments from interviews conducted individually with each respondent guided the interpretation of ethical perspective used by these respondents in making clinical decisions about the cases.

Measurements and Main Results: Second-order factor analysis on seventeen viewpoints used by physicians in the four hypothetical urgent decision cases revealed three moderately correlated (r ² < 40%) subjective core attitudinal guides used broadly among all the cases and among sixteen of the seventeen original factors. Across all the cases, our participants were guided in general by: (1) patient-focused beneficence, (2) a patient- and surrogate-focused perspective that includes risk avoidance, and (3) best interest of the patient guided by ethical values. Economic impact on the physician, expediency in resolution of the situation, and the expense of medical treatment were not found to be influential determinants in this study.

Conclusions: Q sorting and by-person factor analysis are useful qualitative methodological tools to study the complex structure of subjective attitudes that influence physicians in making medical decisions. This study revealed the subjective viewpoints used by our physician participants as they made ethically challenging treatment decisions. The three second-order factors identified here are grounded in current bioethical values as well as the personal traits of physicians. The participants' decision methods appear to resemble casuistry more than principle-based decision making. Generalizability of results will require further studies.     

Lexical decision task performance in blood-fearful and spider-fearful individuals

University undergraduates were pre-screened for blood fearfulness (fear of blood, n = 25), spider fearfulness (fear of spiders, n = 30), or non-fearfulness (n = 23) and presented with blood, spider, neutral, positive, and pseudoword (pronouncable nonword, like flirp) stimuli in a lexical decision task (LDT). Use of the LDT in phobic individuals may provide insight about how these individuals process, store, and ultimately use information and, in turn, how processing this information affects their day-to-day activities. Words were responded to faster than pseudowords. No group main or interaction effects emerged, and all groups responded faster and more accurately to spider words then blood words and neutral words. Results suggest that the single-word lexical decision task may not be sensitive in detecting lexical processing biases toward threat in these groups. Results also suggest that paradigms that are based on high-level, semantic-conceptual information processing (like lexical decision) are not sensitive enough to detect group differences in blood and spider phobias. Any array of perceptual and conceptual tasks taken together may be needed to detect these differences.     

Lexical decision task performance in blood-fearful and spider-fearful individuals

University undergraduates were pre-screened for blood fearfulness (fear of blood, n = 25), spider fearfulness (fear of spiders, n = 30), or non-fearfulness (n = 23) and presented with blood, spider, neutral, positive, and pseudoword (pronouncable nonword, like flirp) stimuli in a lexical decision task (LDT). Use of the LDT in phobic individuals may provide insight about how these individuals process, store, and ultimately use information and, in turn, how processing this information affects their day-to-day activities. Words were responded to faster than pseudowords. No group main or interaction effects emerged, and all groups responded faster and more accurately to spider words then blood words and neutral words. Results suggest that the single-word lexical decision task may not be sensitive in detecting lexical processing biases toward threat in these groups. Results also suggest that paradigms that are based on high-level, semantic-conceptual information processing (like lexical decision) are not sensitive enough to detect group differences in blood and spider phobias. Any array of perceptual and conceptual tasks taken together may be needed to detect these differences.     

The decoy effect as a covert influence tactic

The purpose of this research was to determine whether individuals could use the decoy effect to influence others' choices. In study 1, undergraduates (n = 50) and executive master's of business administration (EMBA) students (n = 24) read an employee selection scenario in which they were randomly assigned to prefer one of two candidates that were equal in overall attractiveness, but that had different strengths and weaknesses. They were then asked to choose one of three inferior candidates to add to the choice set that would make their preferred candidate more likely to be chosen by other decision makers. The “correct” inferior candidate was asymmetrically dominated—dominated by one of the two existing candidates, but not the other. Participants chose the “correct” decoy candidate at better than chance levels. In study 2, undergraduates and EMBA students (total n = 66) completed a set of four decision tasks, in which they were asked to choose from potential decoy alternatives that would highlight their preferred job candidate or the product they preferred to sell to a customer. Participants again chose the correct option at better than chance levels. When participants provided free‐response reasons for their choices, these responses indicated a fairly strong recognition of the influential nature of creating a dominating relationship. Implications for understanding this effect and how it may be used by hiring managers, sales personnel, and others who attempt to influence others people's decisions at work, are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do transposed-letter similarity effects occur at a prelexical phonological level?

Nonwords created by transposing two letters (e.g., RELOVUTION) are very effective at activating the lexical representation of their base words (Perea & Lupker, 2004). In the present study, we examined whether the nature of transposed-letter (TL) similarity effects was purely orthographic or whether it could also have a phonological component. Specifically, we examined transposed-letter similarity effects for nonwords created by transposing two nonadjacent letters (e.g., relovución–REVOLUCIÓN) in a masked form priming experiment using the lexical decision task (Experiment 1). The controls were (a) a pseudohomophone of the transposed-letter prime (relobución–REVOLUCIÓN; note that B and V are pronounced as /b/ in Spanish) or (b) an orthographic control (relodución–REVOLUCIÓN). Results showed a similar advantage of the TL nonword condition over the phonological and the orthographic control conditions. Experiment 2 showed a masked phonological priming effect when the letter positions in the prime were in the right order. In a third experiment, using a single-presentation lexical decision task, TL nonwords produced longer latencies than the orthographic and phonological controls, whereas there was only a small phonological effect restricted to the error data. These results suggest that TL similarity effects are orthographic—rather than phonological—in nature.     

Do Birds of a Feather Cheat Together? How Personality and Relationships Affect Student Cheating

Academic misconduct is widespread in schools, colleges, and universities and it appears to be an international phenomenon that also spills over into the workplace (Nonis and Swift 2001; Sims 1993; Stone et al. 2011). To this end, while a great deal of research has investigated various individual components such as, demographic, personality and situational factors that contribute to cheating, research has yet to examine why students help others cheat and which students are being asked to help others cheat. In this study, we investigated if the closeness of the relationship to the individual requesting help in cheating to the individual being asked to help cheat, influenced the decision to help cheat. We also investigated if past cheating behavior predicted how an individual would respond to requests to cheat. Additionally, we sought to answer the following questions; whether minor cheating is more prevalent than serious cheating, what personality factors predict helping others cheat, who is helped, and how people rationalize helping others cheat. Results indicate minor cheating to be more prevalent, prudent personalities are less likely to have cheated or to help others cheat, individuals are more likely to help friends cheat than to help strangers, and past cheating behaviors is indicative of helping others to cheat. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Identifying and Addressing Barriers to Treatment Decision‐making in Bipolar II Disorder: Clinicians’ Perspective

Objective

Treatment decision‐making in bipolar II disorder is complex due to limited evidence on treatment efficacy and potentially burdensome side‐effects of options. Thus, involving patients and negotiating treatment options with them is necessary to ensure that final treatment decisions balance both clinician and patient preferences. This study qualitatively explored clinician views on (a) effective treatment decision‐making, unmet patient needs for (b) decision‐support and (c) information.

Method

Qualitative semi‐structured interviews with 20 practising clinicians (n = 10 clinical psychologists, n = 6 general practitioners, n = 4 psychiatrists) with experience treating adult outpatients with bipolar II disorder were conducted. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically using framework methods. Self‐report professional experience, and clinician preferences for patient decision‐making involvement were also assessed.

Results

Qualitative analyses yielded two inter‐related themes: (a) challenges and barriers to decision‐making and (b) facilitators of clinician decision‐making. Symptom severity, negative family attitudes, system‐based factors, and information gaps were thought to pose challenges to decision‐making. By contrast, decision‐making was supported by patient information, family involvement and patient‐centredness, and a strong therapeutic relationship. Clinician views varied depending on their professional background (medical vs clinical psychologist), patient involvement preferences, and whether the clinician was a bipolar specialist.

Conclusions

Whilst clinicians uniformly recognise the importance of involving patients in informed treatment decision‐making, active patient participation is hampered by unmet informational and decision‐support needs. Current findings inform a number of bipolar II disorder‐specific, clinician‐endorsed strategies for facilitating patient decision‐making, which can inform the development of targeted patient decision‐support resources for use in this setting.     

Fostering At-Risk Kindergarten Children's Number Sense

A 9-month training experiment evaluated whether computer-assisted discovery learning of arithmetic regularities can facilitate kindergartners’ fluency with the easiest sums. After a pretest, kindergartners with at least one risk factor (n = 28) were randomly assigned to either a structured add-0/1 training condition, which focused on recognizing the n + 0/0 + n = n and the n + 1/1 + n = the number-after-n rules, or an active control group. Using pretest fluency as the covariate, ANCOVAs revealed that the structured add-0/1 group significantly outperformed the control group on both practiced and unpracticed (transfer) n + 0/0 + n and n + 1/1 + n items at the delayed posttest and had significantly larger gains in mathematics achievement. Key instructional implications include: Early intervention that targets discovering rules for adding with 0 and 1 and family-specific developmental prerequisites is feasible and more effective than typical classroom instruction in promoting fluency with such basic sums. Such rules may be a critically important bridge between informal and formal mathematics.     

No expectation bias in elite-level cricket umpires’ leg-before-wicket (LBW) decisions according to batting order position

ObjectivesPrevious studies have shown that sport officials’ decisions can be impacted by biases associated with expectations. The aim of this study was to determine whether elite cricket umpires’ decisions are also influenced by expectations associated with batter skill.MethodsLBW decisions (n = 5578) from actual elite level cricket matches in Australia between 2009 and 2016 were analysed in a multi-level binomial logistic regression paradigm. In our first model, we predicted the likelihood that an umpire will answer ‘out’ for batters in the top order (1–4), middle order (5–7), and low order (8-11). In our second model, we controlled for the correctness of a decision.ResultsUmpires were more likely to respond ‘out’ as the batting order progressed, however this did not appear to be due to biased decision-making. Instead, as batting order progressed, batters were more likely to actually be ‘out’.ConclusionsCricket umpires do not seem to be impacted by expectation bias associated with batting order. This study highlights the importance of controlling for the correctness of a decision when exploring bias in sport officials’ decisions.     

Narcissism and Performance on Behavioral Decision‐making Tasks

Three studies examined narcissism and behavioral decision making. Decision‐making tasks included the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Studies 1–3), Balloon Analogue Risk Task (Studies 1–3), Columbia Card Task (CCT; Studies 2 and 3), and Game of Dice Task (Study 3). To tease apart the contributions of grandiose narcissism (i.e., narcissism found in the general population), pathological narcissism, and narcissistic traits (i.e., grandiosity, entitlement, and exploitativeness) in decision making, we assessed grandiose narcissism in Studies 1 (n = 380) and 2 (n = 244), pathological narcissism in Study 2, and the narcissistic traits in Study 3 (n = 312). Grandiose and pathological narcissism failed to predict decision making regardless of whether or not decision making included immediate feedback. In Study 3, the narcissistic trait of grandiosity (i.e., having an inflated sense of self‐importance) was associated with greater risk taking on the CCT‐hot (i.e., provided immediate feedback), and entitlement was associated with greater risk taking on the IGT. Measurement and applied implications are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are you talking to the future me? The moderator role of future self‐relevance on the effects of aging salience in retirement savings

Increasing the salience of aging has been shown to be a promising strategy to promote young adults' interest in saving for retirement. However, the processes responsible for this effect are still largely unknown. We hypothesize that increased savings choices will only occur when participants are also engaged in self‐relevant thoughts about their own future. Participants were exposed to a fictitious website advertising financial products. Study 1 (n = 78; M_age = 20.87) primed age salience and future self‐relevance orthogonally and showed that priming aging only caused increases in retirement investment decisions when self‐relevance was also high. Study 2 (n = 91; M_age = 23.40) tested whether the effects of age priming were due specifically to age or to a broader focus on the future. The study confirmed that investment decision effects are specific to exposure to the aging prime and not merely priming the future. The effects were also specific to investment in retirement funds and not just depositing money in a checking account. These findings have both theoretical and practical implications for the psychology of aging and retirement planning.     

Informational nudges as an effective approach in raising awareness among young adults about the risk of future disability

As many consumers have neither sufficient time nor the cognitive and motivational resources to deal with complex insurance decisions, the mere provision of information might not be enough to influence consumer perception and choice. The way such information is presented might also affect any decision made. This paper focuses on the risk of becoming unable to continue in a profession as a result of illness or an accident. In collaboration with an insurance company, we examined the effectiveness of ‘informational nudging’ (i.e. providing information which acts as a nudge) in sensitizing young adults to the potential risk of disability. In a pre‐study, an online survey (n = 1003) was conducted to assess the main barriers preventing young Swiss adults from participating in private provision. Based on the results of the pre‐study, we developed four ‘informational nudges’ and tested their effects on risk awareness and insurance choices among young adults using an online experiment (n = 240). We found that by presenting information on a company website in such a way that heuristics such as availability or loss aversion were exploited, enhanced risk awareness and a corresponding increase in insurance preferences were observed to some degree. However, the informational nudges did not motivate the participants to investigate the issues any further. Indeed, the results suggested that informational nudging could be an effective tool in raising participant awareness, but that future research is needed to understand better the interplay between automatic and deliberate processes activated by the informational nudges. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Even better than the real thing: Alternative outcome bias affects decision judgements and decision regret

Three experiments demonstrated that decisions resulting in considerable amounts of profit, but missed alternative outcomes of greater profits, were rated lower in quality and produced more regret than did decisions that returned lesser (or equal) amounts of profit but either did not miss or missed only slightly better alternatives. These effects were mediated by upward counterfactuals and moderated by participants’ orientation to the decision context. That decision evaluations were affected by the availability and magnitude of alternative outcomes rather than the positivity of actual outcomes is counter to the outcome bias effect—a bias in which decisions are rated more positively when they led to more positive outcomes (despite a priori probabilities associated with the decision outcomes). Experiment 3 demonstrated that these effects represent a bias that occurs even when it is clear that the process by which decisions were made followed rational decision processes. This research suggests that when alternative worlds are even better than the desirable outcomes experienced, affect and cognition may be more strongly linked to the magnitude of alternative realities than to obtained outcomes.     

Myopic regret avoidance: Feedback avoidance and learning in repeated decision making

Decision makers can become trapped by myopic regret avoidance in which rejecting feedback to avoid short-term outcome regret (regret associated with counterfactual outcome comparisons) leads to reduced learning and greater long-term regret over continuing poor decisions. In a series of laboratory experiments involving repeated choices among uncertain monetary prospects, participants primed with outcome regret tended to decline feedback, learned the task slowly or not at all, and performed poorly. This pattern was reversed when decision makers were primed with self-blame regret (regret over an unjustified decision). Further, in a final experiment in which task learning was unnecessary, feedback was more often rejected in the self-blame regret condition than in the outcome regret condition. We discuss the findings in terms of a distinction between two regret components, one associated with outcome evaluation, the other with the justifiability of the decision process used in making the choice.     

Mustering motivation to enact decisions: how decision process characteristics influence goal realization

Decision scientists tend to focus mainly on decision antecedents, studying how people make decisions. Action psychologists, in contrast, study post‐decision issues, investigating how decisions, once formed, are maintained, protected, and enacted. Through the research presented here, we seek to bridge these two disciplines, proposing that the process by which decisions are reached motivates subsequent pursuit and benefits eventual realization. We identify three characteristics of the decision process (DP) as having motivation‐mustering potential: DP effort investment, DP importance, and DP confidence. Through two field studies tracking participants' decision processes, pursuit and realization, we find that after controlling for the influence of the motivational mechanisms of goal intention and implementation intention, the three decision process characteristics significantly influence the successful enactment of the chosen decision directly. The the oretical and practical implications of these findings are considered and future research opportunities are identified. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A cheat in our midst: How people evaluate and respond to fellow group members who cheat

Having a group cheat within a group can violate group trust and reduce the benefits gained from group membership. However, group members will sometimes cheat to get an advantage over other in‐group members. In two experiments, the present research investigated how group members evaluate and respond to fellow group members who cheat, and whether group prototypicality or evaluators’ group identification moderate evaluations and behavioral recommendations toward group cheats. In Study 1 (N = 146 undergraduate students), group members evaluated group cheats more negatively than a comparable group deviant. However, highly identified group members would spare a cheat who had high group prototypicality. In Study 2 (N = 227 undergraduate students), highly identified group members rated a one‐time cheat with high prototypicality more favorably than a one‐time cheat with low prototypicality. However, prototypicality did not moderate evaluations toward a multiple time group cheat. In both studies, target evaluations were associated with changes in behavioral recommendations. Overall, results indicate a pattern similar to research on transgression or deviance credit: having group prototypicality can save a group cheat from an initial negative evaluation from highly identified group members, but prototypicality does not buffer against negative evaluations toward multiple time group cheaters.     

Coordination in Market Entry Games with Symmetric Players

We report the results of two experiments designed to study tacit coordination in a class of market entry games with linear payoff functions, binary decisions, and zero entry costs, in which each of n = 20 players must decide on each trial whether or not to enter a market whose capacity is public knowledge. The results show that although the subjects differ considerably from one another in their decision policies, tacit coordination emerges quickly on the aggregate level and is accounted for most successfully by the Nash equilibrium solution for noncooperative n-person games.