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Investigating Managers' Fine-Grained Evaluation Processes in Organizations: Exploring Two Dual-Process Perspectives
Haoye Sun1,2, Willem J M I Verbeke3, Frank Belschak4
1School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Frontiers in Neuroscience
|September 20, 2021
Summary
Managers’ decisions to fire or exclude employees are processed differently in the brain, supporting the parallel-competitive account of dual-process theory. Context influences whether early or later brain processes dominate decision-making.
Area of Science:
- Organizational Theory
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Dual-process theory explains decision-making through two main conjectures: default-interventionist and parallel-competitive accounts.
- Understanding the neural and emotional underpinnings of managerial decisions is crucial in organizational contexts.
Purpose of the Study:
- To empirically investigate the default-interventionist versus parallel-competitive accounts of dual-process theory.
- To examine brain processes and self-reported feelings during managerial evaluations in economic (firing) versus social (excluding) contexts.
Main Methods:
- Utilized event-related potentials (ERPs) to analyze brain activity, focusing on novelty detection (N2), goal violation detection (N400), and conscious emotional arousal (late positive potential, LPP).
- Assessed self-reported feelings associated with firing or excluding employees.
- Employed stereotype content model categories (warmth and competence) to define target employees.
Main Results:
- Brain dynamics and self-reported measures significantly differed between firing and excluding contexts, aligning with goal pursuit theory.
- Context-dependent processing indicated that later-stage brain processes overruled earlier stages.
- Findings provide stronger support for the parallel-competitive account over the default-interventionist account.
Conclusions:
- The study's results support the parallel-competitive account of dual-process theory in managerial decision-making.
- Managerial decisions in economic versus social contexts involve distinct neural and emotional pathways.
- Implications for management research and practice regarding employee evaluation and decision-making processes.
Keywords:
dual-process theoryeconomic contextevent-related potentialssocial network contextstereotype content modelMore Related Videos
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