An Analysis of Lower-Level Managerial Decision Making in an Industrial Firm

Abstract

Research was conducted on the characteristics of and decision time distribution among five general types of recurrent decision problems (task, people, money, information, and other) encountered by first-, second-, and third-level managers. People decisions were reported to be most difficult, task and people decisions about equally important, and task decisions most preferable to make. Overall, these lower-level managers divide their decision time about equally between task decisions and people, money, information, and and other decisions combined. Compared with first-level managers, third-level managers spend less time on task and information decisions and more time on people and money decisions.