The Influence of Core Self-Evaluations on Group Decision Making Processes: A Laboratory Experiment

Matteo Cristofaro,Luna Leoni,Pier Luigi Giardino

doi:10.3390/admsci10020029

Matteo Cristofaro, Luna Leoni + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci10020029

Copy DOI

Journal: Administrative Sciences	Publication Date: May 7, 2020
Citations: 5	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Rome Tor Vergata

Abstract

The personal trait called Core Self-Evaluations (CSE) has been receiving increasing attention from behavioral strategy scholars due to its ability to predict job performance and to explain some facets of decision-making processes. However, despite previous studies hypothesizing that managers with high values of CSE are intuitive thinkers, beyond any doubt of their capacities and that they significantly lead to positive results for their organization, no one has empirically investigated these assumptions. This gap can be substantiated by the following research question: “How do high Core Self-Evaluations influence team decision-making processes?”. Answering it provides insights on how the evaluations that decision makers make about situations (and the consequent actions that are implemented) highly depend on decision makers’ inner traits and their effect on cognition. To fill this gap, 120 graduate students—divided into groups of four—took part in a simulation game and were asked to make decisions acting the role of General Manager of a small-sized manufacturing firm. Tests aimed at identifying the CSE and intuitive/reflecting thinking approach of participants were administered; moreover, the performance resulting from their decision-making processes and their estimation of reached results were collected. Results show that an average level of CSE is preferable to balance intuitive and reflective thinking, as well as avoiding overconfidence bias and reaching the best performance possible. This work suggests that there is a huge misattribution in considering a high level of CSE as being beneficial for decision-making processes and consequent performance.

Highlights

In order to survive in the current competitive environment, both private and public organizations are constantly looking to reach organizational effectiveness and efficiency; the achievement of these results depends on organizational agents’ level of effectiveness and efficiency (Inuwa 2016)and how good they are at making decisions (Simon 1947)
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study investigating the Core Self-Evaluations (CSE) trait variable at the group level—apart from being the first to investigate, in depth, its implications for organizational decision-making processes. These results suggest that, in terms of practical implications, human resource managers track the CSE level of each individual within organizations and suggest composing teams to achieve better decisional and organizational performance
A Tukey post hoc test, shown in Table 2, revealed that high CSE groups were more inclined to the average CSE groups for intuitive thinking (−4.2 right answers compared with them; p = 0.00), but they were inclined to intuitive thinking with respect to low CSE groups (p = 0.964) (p = 0.989)

Summary

Introduction

In order to survive in the current competitive environment, both private and public organizations are constantly looking to reach organizational effectiveness and efficiency; the achievement of these results depends on organizational agents’ level of effectiveness and efficiency (Inuwa 2016)and how good they are at making decisions (Simon 1947). According to the established literature, organizational agents’ ability to make successful decision-making processes mainly relies, on the one hand, on the organizational environment (Wu and Lee 2016) and, on the other hand, on individual characteristics, such as emotions (Cristofaro 2019, 2020) and personal traits Bono 2001), namely the evaluations that individuals make about others, the world, and themselves (in this last case, we mean core self-evaluations, CSE), are those that have been receiving increasing attention from behavioral strategy scholars (Hiller and Hambrick 2005; Powell et al 2011), due to their ability to predict job performance (Judge and Bono 2001) and to explain some facets of decision-making processes (Hollenbeck et al 1988; Judge et al 1998; Silvester et al 2002).

Methods

Results

Conclusion