Cognitive Dimensions of Decision-Making in Managers; Do Managers Have Different Cognitive Processes in Decision-Making?

Decision-making is assumed to be one of the most important functions of managers. So much so that the success or failure of the company can be considered to a large extent due to the quality of the decisions made by its managers. The development of methodologies in the field of organizational cognitive neuroscience (OCN) has created hopes for strategic management researchers to understand this managerial function and its dimensions and identify opportunities for interventions to improve it. Nevertheless, there is very little empirical evidence regarding the cognitive dimensions of decision-making in managers, and this has challenged the efforts to achieve the necessary theoretical basis for the development of tools and methods to improve decision-making. In this article and in an attempt to answer some part of this gap in the theoretical body, important processes affecting decision-making dysfunctions in two dimensions of time and uncertainty have been investigated. For this purpose, 62 subjects (33 female) in two groups of managers and people without a managerial background, randomly performed the Delayed Discounting Task (DDT) and Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). The results showed that there is no significant difference between managers and non-managers from the delayed discounting standpoint. Nevertheless, managers had a higher level of risk-taking than non-managers. The results of this study will help researchers in the field of OCN to better understand decision-making in managers and try to provide objective solutions to improve this cognitive function.