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

Conclusions

This study offers a number of contributions. A methodological contribution is the use of a combination of agent-based simulation with experimentation, which facilitates research experiments with greater validity, realism, and power. For example, in this study, we used human decisionmakers who in real life make the decisions we studied, which provided a high degree of external validity. A practical contribution is that our findings provide evidence that may challenge prior theoretical notions of swift trust operating in JOC-type organizational forms, which raises a variety of implications for future research. This study may also contribute to research on other organizational forms such as alliances and joint ventures, and motivate researchers to study the effects of affiliation and situation on these organizational forms. In conclusion, we hope this study may contribute to a better understanding of interorganizational coordination issues, which may hold implications for researchers and practitioners alike in both the private and public sectors.

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