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Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to explore the implications of viewing group decision-making through the lens of a social dilemma.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter reviews the literature on why group decision-making often fails to live up to its potential, and then applies the social dilemma perspective to develop new insights about how the limitations of group decision-making might be overcome.

Findings – Applying the social dilemma perspective to group decision-making provides several prescriptions for group decision-making improvement by highlighting a critical distinction between participation and engagement.

Limitations – An important limitation of applying the social dilemma perspective to group decision-making is that improving group engagement by redefining member duty carries the risk of energizing dissent that only questions the group's answer and not the group's question.

Practical implications – The chapter refocuses the dialogue about group decision-making effectiveness away from “just” participation to include group member engagement.

Social implications – A key social implication of this chapter is that all social behavior represents a social dilemma, and that viewing everyday social activities (such as group decision-making) as social dilemmas can help identify new ways to understand cooperation failures and thereby improve future cooperation in groups.

Originality/value – The chapter extends and re-energizes research on group decision-making by providing a fresh lens – the social dilemma perspective – through which to understand and improve group decision-making failures.

Legalists and social scientists have not been able to explain the expansion of gay rights in a conservative age because they refuse to respect the special qualities of judicial decision making. These qualities require the Supreme Court to look simultaneously at the past, present, and future, and, most importantly, to determine questions of individual rights through a consideration of how citizens are to live under a continuing rights regime. Unless scholars understand how and why Supreme Court decision making differs from that of more directly politically accountable institutions we can expect no greater success in explaining or predicting individual rights in the future.

The team members’ expertise has been shown to increase team effectiveness when it is actively coordinated. While in face-to-face teams such expertise coordination unfolds through direct interaction, expertise coordination in dispersed teams is unlikely to evolve automatically. In this context, shared leadership, that is, the distribution of leadership influence across multiple team members is argued to serve as initiating mechanism for expertise coordination.

Distributed performance arrangements are increasingly used by organizations to structure dyadic and team interactions. Unfortunately, distributed teams are no panacea. This chapter reviews some of the advantages and disadvantages associated with the geographical and temporal distribution of team members. An extended discussion of the implications of distributed team performance for individual, team, and organizational decision making is provided, with particular attention paid to selected cultural factors. Best practices and key points are advanced for those stakeholders charged with offsetting the performance decrements in decision making that can result from distribution and culture.

Today, long-term success requires firms to sense changes in their environments early and react efficiently to them. Increasing middle managers’ participation in decision-making about market-related and product-related questions has been suggested as one way of enhancing this strategic responsiveness; abandoning formal planning, such as annual budgets, has been another. Yet, empirical evidence on the matter is scarce and conflicting. Drawing on data from Denmark’s 500 largest firms, we show that participation of middle managers in decision-making about new products and markets to serve, in-deed, increases firms’ strategic responsiveness as assessed by a reduction in firms’ downside risk. However, this effect is not a direct one. Nor does it interact positively or negatively with the emphasis put on formal planning as submitted in literature. Our evidence suggests that emphasis on planning mediates the relation between stronger participation of middle managers in decision-making and the increase in firms’ strategic responsiveness. This has implications for ongoing theory building and practice.

Significant advances in digital technologies impact both organisations and knowledge workers alike. Organisations are now able to effectively analyse significant amounts of data, while accomplishing actionable insight and data-driven decision-making through knowledge workers that understand and manage greater complexity. For decision-makers to be in a position where sufficient information and data-driven insights enable them to make informed decisions, they need to better understand fundamental constructs that lead to the understanding of deep knowledge and wisdom. In an attempt to guide organisations in such a process of understanding, this research study focuses on the design of an organisational transformation framework for data-driven decision-making (OTxDD) based on the collaboration of human and machine for knowledge work. The OTxDD framework was designed through a design science research approach and consists of 4 major enablers (data analytics, data management, data platform, data-driven organisation ethos) and 12 sub-enablers. The OTxDD framework was evaluated in a real-world scenario, where after, based on the evaluation feedback, the OTxDD framework was improved and an organisational measurement tool developed. By considering such an OTxDD framework and measurement tool, organisations will be able to create a clear transformation path to data-driven decision-making, while applying the insight from both knowledge workers and intelligent machines.

Successful smart cities' implementation will require organisational leadership decision-making competences. The foundation of smart cities is digital technologies; many of these technologies are emerging technologies that require IT skills, which are scarce and will exacerbate the battle for talent between organisations. Filling the talent gap will necessitate global hiring, which has implications for organisational culture, cultural diversity and organisational leadership. Organisational cultural mix is an important contributor to leadership decision-making. However, decision-making is underpinned by trust. Blockchain is an emerging technology that has the potential to engender organisational trust in decision-making and, by extension, in the leadership with the ‘right’ organisational culture. Smart cities will be required to leverage emerging technologies to give business performance a competitive advantage and use emerging technologies’ applications to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

This chapter aims to demonstrate that different cultures influence tourist decision making. Multi-structural models are used to assess to what extend the cultural traits may influence decision-making styles of tourists. Cultural traits and decision-making styles were conceptualized as multidimensional constructs. The empirical study is supported through data from a sample of individuals visiting Lisbon during the New Year events. The analysis shows significant differences within the country of birth. Furthermore, the study concludes that the most important cultural dimensions in each of the countries lead to different decision-making styles. Although there are geographical and temporal limitations, the present study's findings suggest substantial effects of culture in tourist decision making, and these effects are heterogeneous along different countries. This chapter provides insights into how tourism destinations should position themselves in different cultural contexts. This study contributes to the overall understanding of culture as a driving influence in the way tourists decide to travel. Specifically, this chapter provides empirical evidence of how tourists' behavior varies according to the cultural heterogeneity of countries.

Purpose – This chapter offers an integrative review of psychological and neurobiological differences between younger and older adults that might impact economic behavior. Focusing on key health economic challenges facing the elderly, it offers perspectives on how these psychological and neurobiological factors may influence decision-making over the life course and considers future interdisciplinary research directions.

Methodology/approach – We review relevant literature from three domains that are essential for developing a comprehensive science of decision-making and economic behavior in aging (psychology, neuroscience, and economics), consider implications for prescription drug coverage and long-term care (LTC) insurance, and highlight future research directions.

Findings – Older adults face many complex economic decisions that directly affect their health and well-being, including LTC insurance, prescription drug plans, and end of life care. Economic research suggests that many older Americans are not making cost-effective and economically rational decisions. While economic models provide insight into some of the financial incentives associated with these decisions, they typically do not consider the roles of cognition and affect in decision-making. Research has established that older age is associated with predictable declines in many cognitive functions and evidence is accumulating that distinct social motives and affect-processing profiles emerge in older age. It is unknown how these age differences impact the economic behaviors of older people and implies opportunities for path-breaking interdisciplinary research.

Originality/value of the chapter – Our chapter looks to develop interdisciplinary research to better understand the causes and consequences of age-related changes in economic decision-making and guide interventions to improve public programs and overall social welfare.

This paper evaluates the only industry-wide process initiated by a union through collective bargaining to reorganize traditional work systems and transform labor relations. It analyzes attempts over the past decade by the United Steelworkers of America to introduce its model for a more participative work system in an effort to gain access to business information, share in business decision making, improve quality, reduce costs, and build better relations between management and the union in the U.S. basic steel industry. This study shows that the Cooperative Partnership Agreements have produced mixed results. Using survey and interview data, the paper compares plants that successfully implemented the CPA with those that did not and analyzes the reasons for the variation in their impact. Further the paper draws out the lessons from this unique union-driven contractual approach to industry reform.