Impact of Socialized Uncertainty on Group Decision Making: An Experiment with Emerging Executives

Many stakeholders in society are concerned about the effectiveness of decision making behavior for our future generation of leaders. Risk taking behavior has been studied in the context of cultural factors (including gender) or decision making but rarely have both of these dimensions been examined simultaneously especially with emerging business leaders. Decision making behavior has not been studied at the group level of analysis in the context of socialized culture using samples of young emerging executives. Therefore, the authors conducted a controlled experiment with senior university students to test the impact of risk taking culture and gender on group decision making behavior in a complex project. In their experiment gender did not impact decision making behavior but the socialized uncertainty was a statistically significant casual factor. The authors conducted a controlled experiment with senior university students to test the impact of risk taking culture and gender on group decision making behavior in a complex project. Although their results agreed with the literature, one finding was completely opposite from their hypothesis. In the authors' experiment, the participant's gender did not impact decision making behavior but the socialized uncertainty factor was statistically significant in the logistic regression models.