Affiliation or situation: what drives strategic decision-making in crisis response?

Journal of Managerial Issues, Summer, 2009 by Paul Drnevich, Rangaraj Ramanujam, Shailendra Mehta, Alok Chaturvedi

RESULTS

Overall, we found that both affiliation and situational characteristics appear to influence member preferences in JOCs. However, these effects may operate at different points in time with affiliation effects being stronger initially and attenuating over time, and situational effects possibly becoming more salient towards the end, perhaps partially offsetting the influence of affiliation. We examine these results in more detail in relation to each hypothesis.

Hypotheses Testing

Hypothesis 1. In Hypothesis 1 we predicted that in the early stages of the JOC, individual decision preferences will vary with affiliation. We observed support for Hypothesis 1 for vaccination preference (VP), which was significant initially (periods T1 and T2), with the effects decreasing with time and dissipating by the third period. Additionally, the situational variables were not significant in periods T1 and T2. Therefore, we conclude support for Hypothesis 1 for our vaccination preference dependent variable, but not for quarantine preference (see Table 2).

Hypothesis 2. In Hypothesis 2 we predicted that over time, individual decision preferences will cease to vary with affiliation. We observed support for Hypothesis 2 for both dependent variables, as the organizational affiliation measure was not significant by the end of the exercise (periods T3 and T4). Further, while the situation variables were also not significant in the periods T3 and T4, one measure (public mood) was significant overall for vaccination preference. Therefore, we conclude support for Hypothesis 2 (see Table 2).

Hypothesis 3. In Hypothesis 3 we predicted that individual decision preferences will vary based on the situational influences. To examine this hypothesis, we looked for specific evidence of an overall significant effect of the situation variables on decision preference. As the public mood variable was significant for vaccination preference across all time periods combined, and the other measure (number infected) also approach significance for the model for quarantine preference, we conclude there exists partial support for Hypothesis 3 (see Table 2).

Hypothesis 4. In Hypothesis 4 we predicted that at no time will individual preferences vary with affiliation. We did not observe support for this hypothesis, as the organizational affiliation measure was significant overall in both models. Therefore, we failed to find support for Hypothesis 4 (see Table 2).

DISCUSSION

Research Implications

Collectively, our results suggest: (1) affiliation influences appear to drive strategic decision making in early-stage responses, over the needs of the situation, (2) outcome-based learning may lessen the effect of affiliation in strategic decision-making over time, and (3) as uncertainty decreases and information about the situation increases, observed affiliation effects dissipate. These findings appear to support long-held assumptions of uncertainty avoidance perspectives driving strategic decision-making preferences in temporary groups (Busemeyer and Townsend, 1993; Cyert and March, 1963; Ellsberg, 1961; Samuelson and Zeckhauser, 1988; Savage, 1954). These observations may also contradict research on the role of swift trust in groups (Lewis and Weigert, 1985; Mayer et al., 1995; McAllister, 1995; McKnight et al., 1998; Meyerson et al., 1996), which proposed that, given the short time periods in which temporary groups operate, adequate opportunity should not be available to observe such variation.