Search results

The purpose of the paper is to explore the quality of leadership decision making at various leadership levels in the further education (FE) sector. Using Hoffberg and Korver's model for integrated decision making, the paper aims to examine how staff in five UK FE colleges perceive the quality of their involvement in decision‐making teams and groups and the extent to which decision‐making processes meet Tatum et al.'s criteria for fair and just organisational decision making

The paper utilises data from the Integrating Diversity in Leadership Project sponsored by the Centre for Excellence in Leadership. It draws on responses made by 67 staff in five FE colleges in the UK to a series of qualitative questions in individual interviews. The paper also draws on observations of the level and quality of interaction and contribution made by 147 staff in 15 leadership decision‐making groups. The paper only draws on those responses that have relevance to the questions of leadership decision making, the quality of decision making and the perceptions of staff regarding their involvement in decision making at various levels.

The data suggest that inclusiveness in decision making decreases with the hierarchy of decision‐making groups, with the most senior groups being seen as the most exclusive, least transformed, closely guarded and offering restricted entry. Similarly, decision‐making teams at different levels are associated with different levels of justice and fairness related to the balance made between competing dilemmas of people versus process.

There is limited research conducted in this area. The study brings together aspects of social justice and inclusive decision making to bear on the structures and processes of leadership decision making in educational settings and uncovers a range of barriers that stand in the way of inclusive and fair decision making. These findings could indeed be a seedbed for an emerging theory of leadership decision making in educational establishments.

It is unclear how nascent entrepreneurs make decisions during the venture creation process. The purpose of this paper is to investigate decision-making logics and their transformation over time among student entrepreneurs who aim to create new business ventures in the higher education setting.

The study employs the mixed methods approach through the use of survey and observation data. The longitudinal survey data comprise three surveys collected via an internet-aided tool. The constructs of causation and effectuation are measured using previously tested scales (Chandler et al., 2011). Non-participant observation data were collected during the course, focussing on the venture creation processes of four different start-ups, and were analysed thematically.

The findings show three transformation patterns – doubts in how to proceed, unwillingness to proceed, and unsatisfactory team dynamics – that led individuals towards a coping decision-making logic in which no causation or effectuation is emphasised. The findings illustrate that, despite this stage of decision-making logic, the learning process continues: Even if no new business venture is launched, entrepreneurship education can still generate learning outcomes that improve students’ understanding of entrepreneurship as well as understanding of themselves as entrepreneurs.

This study brings the theories of causation and effectuation into the teaching of entrepreneurship. Of particular value to scholars is the fact that the study generates new understanding of the decision-making logics during new venture creation. Accordingly, this study sheds new light on the transformation and complementarity of the decision-making logic of an individual as new ventures emerge in an educational context reflecting the real-life start-up context.

The purpose of this paper is to develop taxonomy of sourcing decision-making (SDM) archetypes and explore how different contextual factors influence these archetypes when global sourcing of complex components is considered a viable option.

A multiple case study approach with five in-depth cases is employed. In total, 19 interviews as well as publicly available and internal data from large buying firms headquartered in Austria and Germany were collected and analyzed.

The results reveal three different SDM archetypes which are described in detail (i.e. “consensus,” “argumentation” and “cabal”). Furthermore, it is found that these archetypes are mainly influenced by three contextual factors: sourcing maturity, product complexity and leadership style. The final model comprises six propositions which illustrate how these contextual factors determine companies’ SDM archetypes.

The study contributes to theory development at the intersection of organizational buying behavior and the (global) SDM literature. Thereby, it answers the call for more rigorous investigation of the influence of contextual factors on SDM processes.

The findings enable practitioners to better understand and consequently manage SDM processes and their outcomes. By supporting decision-makers in identifying SDM archetypes, this study allows sourcing managers and teams to make better decisions by avoiding problems that occur in situations in which the preferred decision-making type would result in suboptimal decisions.

The study provides a first step toward taxonomy of SDM archetypes and is among the first that explores their underlying contextual factors.

The dual purpose of this paper is to determine how superintendents in US school districts work with stakeholders in the decision‐making process and to learn how different choices superintendents make affect decision outcomes.

This multiple case study of three school districts employs qualitative methodology to address specific research questions. Interview and observation data are analyzed using data codes applied to text through NVivo8.

The paper finds that superintendents respond to accountability pressure by working with committees in different ways, yet all three tend to achieve the strategic decision outcomes they favor. Despite superintendents' substantial efforts to engage in collaborative strategic decision making, collaboration virtually ends once the decision is made and these districts shift into implementation.

The multiple case study approach employed here is useful for understanding the details of strategic decision making, but the results are specific to the school districts studied. Rather than generalizing from these school districts, researchers could generalize to them based on the degree to which they are typical.

Empirical results reported here fill in gaps in the education leadership literature regarding how decisions are made. The tendency of committees to engage in collaborative processes for their own decision making and to issue directives to the wider school district likely places implementation at risk.

Very few studies of decision making address the process from a real‐time perspective, and the handful that do were not conducted in educational settings. This article examines school district decision making as it occurs.

This chapter reports on a qualitative study that investigated the functioning of school governing bodies as a tool for promoting democracy in two schools. Data was gathered through interviews, observations and document reviews. Findings revealed that democracy was in existence and practiced at both schools and that it was characterized by shared decision-making and acknowledged rights of individuals, representation, participation and equality. Two structures for promoting democracy were found to be in existence in both schools, and these are school governing bodies and representative councils for learners. Such structures were found to be functioning effectively and contributing to the democracy in schools. However, although the learner voice was represented at both schools, learner participation in crucial issues in both the schools was limited. The study recommends that all teachers, learners and parent representatives on the SGBs be trained in skills such as deliberation, debate, dialogue and managing differences. Furthermore, training or capacity building related to advocacy skills and leadership development should be provided for all members of the SGB including teachers. The more learners, parents and staff are involved in school policy and decision-making, the more there is a genuine community involvement in schools, and the more effective a school becomes. Also, schools need to move towards learner-initiated decision-making where learners initiate the process and invite adults to join them in decision-making. Also, there is need for teachers to be trained in democratic ways of operating in the school and classroom, which will possibly help them learn ways of working democratically in both the whole school and the classroom.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

Researchers and practitioners have traditionally maintained that organizational buying requires rational decision-making. However, individuals at organizations make decisions daily applying a confluence of rationalizations and emotions. This study aims to address the roles of personal feelings, facts and emotional advertising content in the organizational decision-making process.

In two studies, the authors apply both qualitative and quantitative methods to explore emotional and cognitive reactions to advertising. In Study 1, depth interviews were conducted with marketing and advertising content developers from a Fortune 100 technology company. In Study 2, a web-based survey was sent out to a Fortune 100 company’s buyer panel.

Results suggest that advertising using emotion-based themes helps to foster brand engagement tendencies and advocacy for a brand. Findings also demonstrate that organizational status (C-level executive’s vs non-C-level employees) moderates the relationship between buyers’ reliance on facts and their receptivity to advertising using emotion-based themes, such that reliance on facts increases the appeal of emotional advertising.

This research contributes to the organizational buying literature by addressing the dearth of research on the role of emotions in organizational decision-making and providing insight into the role of advertising in business-to-business (B2B) decision-making.

These results imply that advertising incorporating emotion-based themes provide meaningful information to B2B buyers and is especially effective when targeted at buyers at higher levels in an organization.

B2B buying behavior has traditionally been considered a rational undertaking. This research explores how decision-making orientation and the presence of advertising using emotion-based themes help to foster engagement and advocacy for the brand.

This paper aims to study how biases in decision-making processes could be reduced. In this vein, over the past 30 years, scholars interested in decision-making have been raising their interest in the development of quality control tools to mitigate the effects of cognitive distortions. However, they have often neglected the use of psychological instruments for understanding the role of decision-makers’ personality in the quality of the decision-making processes.

This is an intrinsic case study about an Italian complex organization (i.e. Consorzio ELIS) which tries to shed light on the identified research question. Three decision-makers responsible for the decision processes of three new business initiatives were interviewed using a recent quality control tool (i.e. checklist) and their personality types were tracked by performing MBTI® tests. The thematic analysis, approached by using NVivo software, and after six months of direct observations inside the organization, allowed an understanding of the decision processes and their distortions.

The results of this study show how initiatives with frequent quality control mechanisms and different stakeholders are more able to pass the decision phase than initiatives with no controls, few participants and little difference between personalities.

The results of this work show how reducing biases of decision-making processes in complex organizations can benefit from the simultaneous use of the checklist and MBTI® test. As demonstrated, when used together, they can make more effective use of and provide better results for both, as well as providing a better quality control of the decision-making processes. From that, an approach is proposed that both takes into account the two perspectives and can work together with other cognitive problem structuring methods.

Decision-making structures are commonly associated with the logistics challenges experienced during disaster operations. However, the alignment between the operational level and the decision-making structure is commonly overlooked. The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of the fit of both levels and its impact on performance.

The research is developed around a case study in Mexico. Through a review of the disaster management policy in the country, interviews and secondary data, the paper provides an analysis of the current decision-making structure, the logistics activities undertaken by authorities and the impact of the alignment between both components on logistics performance.

The analysis suggests that several of the challenges commonly associated with centralisation are actually rooted on its alignment with the operational level. The logistics performance is negatively affected by faulty assumptions, poorly planned procedures, inconsistent decision-making and poorly designed structures. The case showed the need to align the operational level with a centralised perspective to increase responsiveness, flexibility and the interaction between different organisations.

This paper identifies the impact of the misalignment between the decision-making structure and the operational level on logistics performance, an area currently understudied. It moves from the current argument about the appropriate decision-making structure for disaster management to the identification of components to implement an efficient and effective disaster management system. Additionally, this paper provides recommendations for best practices in humanitarian logistics, which are applicable to Mexico and other countries using a centralised decision-making approach.