Purpose

This study investigated leaders’ decision-making during crises. Using grounded theory research, we explored whether leaders’ use of either individualistic or collectivistic decision-making styles is based on the context of a crisis. In addition, the authors looked into the components of building leaders’ efficacy during a crisis event and gauged their attitudinal and behavioral reactions to the crisis.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted interviews with 30 C-suite executives during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic to determine their responses to crises. The authors then used open, axial, and selective coding to examine their data, which was then extracted for representative themes and overarching dimensions. In total, The authors received 12 major themes largely summarizing into 6 overarching dimensions – context of decision-making, leaders’ efficacy, individualistic approach to decision-making, collectivistic approach to decision-making, process of decision-making, and outcomes.

Findings

The research presents a decision-making framework clearly bifurcating situations with the need for individualistic and collectivistic decision-making. While, a high level of urgency and scarce resources encouraged leaders to adopt an individualistic approach in which most of the decisions were intuition-based and only high-level stakeholders were involved, the less time urgent and uncertain situation allowed leaders to put significant effort into building their own knowledge systems and involving others. In addition, leaders’ efficacy is understood in terms of their attitudes, readiness and reactions, which further elaborated upon their knowledge systems to allow them to excel in decision-making irrespective of the approaches they chose.

Originality/value

The research has implications for leaders in the decision-making roles to be effective during both individualistic and collectivistic decision-making.

中文翻译：

---

最高管理层领导者的个人主义和集体主义决策风格研究：阐述领导者在危机期间的效率

 目的

本研究调查了领导者在危机期间的决策。通过扎根理论研究，我们探讨了领导者使用个人主义还是集体主义的决策风格是基于危机的背景。此外，作者还研究了建筑领导者在危机事件中效能的组成部分，并衡量了他们对危机的态度和行为反应。

设计/方法/方法

作者在第一波 COVID-19 大流行期间对 30 名最高管理层进行了访谈，以确定他们对危机的反应。然后，作者使用开放、轴向和选择性编码来检查他们的数据，然后提取具有代表性的主题和总体维度的数据。作者总共收到了 12 个主要主题，大致归纳为 6 个总体维度——决策背景、领导者的效能、个人主义的决策方法、集体主义的决策方法、决策过程和结果。

 发现

该研究提出了一个决策框架，清楚地将个人主义和集体主义决策需要的情况分为两部分。虽然高度的紧迫性和稀缺的资源鼓励领导者采用个人主义的方法，其中大多数决策都是基于直觉的，只有高级利益相关者参与，但紧迫和不确定的情况使领导者能够投入大量精力来构建自己的知识体系并让其他人参与进来。此外，领导者的效能可以从他们的态度、准备和反应方面得到理解，这进一步阐述了他们的知识体系，使他们无论选择何种方法，都能在决策中表现出色。

 原创性/价值

该研究对担任决策角色的领导者在个人主义和集体主义决策中都有效具有启示意义。