Predicting verbal plan complexity from decision rule orientation among business students and corporate executives

Abstract

Integrating the verbal planning and decision science literatures, it was reasoned that individuals whose decision rule orientations are complex exhibit greater complexity in their verbal plans than do individuals who are simple in rule orientation. Verbal complexity was based on business student participants' plans for conducting a negative performance appraisal interview; decision rule orientations were assessed by participants' responses to choice‐making scenarios. Linear discriminant analysis substantiated a relationship between college business students' decision rule orientations and their verbal planning complexity. Seventy‐one percent of the business students were classified correctly into decision rule orientation groups based on their complexity scores. This finding was cross‐validated on a sample of executive level managers. Results are considered in terms of several tentative implications for administering of negative performance appraisal interviews and for management training and development generally.