Individual and situational influences on participative decision making

Abstract

The relative influence of individual characteristics and situational elements on the willingness of managers to follow a participative decision making style had been studied within the framework of the organizational decision making model of Vroom and Yetton. The results indicated that in general the influence of the situational elements were stronger than the influence of the individual characteristics but the opposite was true when the analysis was done separately for the different task dimensions. The results also indicated that certain per-sonality factors were related with the willingness of managers to follow a participative decision making style. Opsomming Die relatiewe invloed van individuele verskille en situasie elemente op die gewilligheid van bestuurders om 'n deelnemende besluitneming styl te volg is bestudeer vanuit die raamwerk van die organisatoriese besluitnemingsmodel van Vroom en Yetton. Die resultate het aangedui dat die invloed van die situasie-elemente in die algemeen sterker was as die invloed van die individuele kenmerke, maar dat die omgekeerde waar was toe die analise afsonderlik vir verskillende taakdimensies gedoen is. Die resultate het ook aangedui dat bepaalde persoonlikheidsfaktore verband hou met die gewilligheid van bestuurders om 'n deelnemende besluitnemingstyl te volg.

Keywords

• Participative decision making