Strategic management: Understanding group decision-making propensity

Strategic management has become an increasingly group-oriented process, reflecting its complexity. Drawing on the upper echelons’ perspective, this study examines the group decision-making propensity of top managers, emphasizing both its perceived strengths and weaknesses, while exploring the psychological traits that influence this inclination. A quantitative research design was employed, using a structured questionnaire. Data were collected from C-level executives (chief executive officers [CEOs], chief financial officers [CFOs], and chief operating officers [COOs] in the financial sector. The results indicate that top managers have a significant preference for group decision-making, particularly for complex situations. They highlight several benefits, including decision quality, diversity of perspectives, enhanced creativity and innovation, and the contribution of group processes to members’ growth and development. Interestingly, unlike prior studies, participants do not associate group decision-making with threats to individual authority, the inability to act independently, or the promotion of conflict. Regression analysis reveals that overconfidence, regret, and risk-avoidance significantly and positively predict group decision-making propensity, whereas risk-taking does not exert an important impact. Through the focus on this underexplored construct of group decision-making, this study provides valuable implications for scholars, managers, and policymakers, and, by linking the preference for group to top managers’ characteristics, it contributes new theoretical and practical insights into strategic management.