Decision-Making Processes in the Workplace

This study confirms that in-role performance depends on DMCy as well as job demand levels. In addition, for low levels of job demands, DMCy is strongly and positively related to in-role performance, whereas such interaction disappears for high levels of them. Although research has robustly shown that high chronic job demands and exhaustion adversely affect performance very few research has focused on its possible effects on decision-making in relation to low job demand levels. A possible explanation comes from the definition of DMCy, in which the self-regulation of people allows an efficiently feeling of control over processes of adaptation to the work environment. The self-regulation processes for people with high DMCy could allow the development of strategies able to overcome to frustrations due to changes in job demands. Additionally, it is important to mention that job demands need not to be necessarily negative (if not particularly high), and they still are an indirect index of productivity and performance related to the task. For example, after crisis periods which some Italian companies in the private service sector are now facing, employees with high DMCy can better adapt to new job conditions by developing strategies (e.g., finding new clients, developing international networks, restructuring the organization, introducing new technologies) to overcome environmental conditions and maintaining high performance. This is in line with the DMCy definition which sees a good decision maker as able to promote the implementation of strategies to establish a sense of control to adapt to unpredictable environments.

On the other hand, the DEM is conceptualized as the sensitivity toward environmental aspects relevant for decision processes, which, in turn, may be associated with extra-role performance. As seen, the impact of these environment variables on decision-making processes is relevant and already known, especially in relation to job resources. Our study suggests that job resources may especially affect the performance of individuals who are more receptive to environmental conditions which results in an advantage for them. In complex decision-making environments, high DEM decision makers develop better composite rules, making it effortlessly to assess the source of multiply produced effects, and making effective use of insightful outcome feedbacks. When carrying out these activities, employees have to cope with plenty of limitations and drawbacks that frequently perturb self-evaluative repercussions impairing decision-making processes, this especially if they are low in DEM. For the same reason, individuals who reported higher levels of DEM also report better with extra-role performance in low exhaustion condition, when their energetic status dispose of the enough cognitive resources for making good decisions.