Title: Interests behind managers' decisions: why and when do managers decide for managerial or alternative concepts?

Authors: Thomas Diefenbach

Addresses: College of International Management, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), 1-1 Jumonjibaru, Beppu, Oita 874-8577, Japan

Abstract: Managers' decisions and decision-making still represent some fundamental puzzles. Often, managers decide for the same prevailing 'managerial' concepts - but sometimes they decide for fundamentally different, 'non-managerial' ones. The question is why and when exactly managers choose one or the other. The paper identifies and analyses some key explanatory variables behind managers' decision-making. It is assumed that, amongst other things, managers' interests play a crucial role. In order to interrogate this in more detail, a model of interest-based decision-making has been developed and used to identify key factors at the macro level (organisational environment), meso level (intra-organisational context), micro level (groups of managers), and individual level (individual managers). The analysis leads to the creation of a C-shaped model that states when managers opt for managerial or non-managerial concepts.

Keywords: interest-based decision making; managerial interests; management decisions; managers; modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMDM.2013.056910

International Journal of Management and Decision Making, 2013 Vol.12 No.4, pp.413 - 432

Accepted: 09 Jul 2013
Published online: 24 Jul 2014 *

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