Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Received 3 February 1998; received in revised form 16 October 1998; accepted 26 May 1999
Abstract
It has been suggested that the manner in which a project manager makes decisions can signi®cantly in¯uence his or her
effectiveness and ultimately the design of systems under his or her direction. Arguments for a structured, systematic approach,
as well as arguments for a more well-rounded, `whole-brained' approach have been made. However, it is perhaps more
important to examine what project managers actually are. We surveyed a group of over 200 project managers from across the
United States, attempting to measure their decision making styles, especially as they relate to project management activity.
The survey not only identi®es a person's propensity towards a particular style of decision making, but also his or her
propensity towards brain dominance, an idea or action orientation, and a preferred management level of decision making. The
results of this study indicate that though each project manager is unique, as a group project managers are well-rounded and
tend to solve problems utilizing a `whole-brained' approach. # 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
0378-7206/99/$ ± see front matter # 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 7 2 0 6 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 2 5 - 7
314 T.L. Fox, J.W. Spence / Information & Management 36 (1999) 313±320
[6,11], it is necessary to examine if, in fact, individual an individual's preferred decision style. Cognitive
differences do exist among project managers, and the complexity is re¯ected in an individual's tolerance,
potential in¯uence of these differences. It has been either high or low, for ambiguity (or conversely,
suggested that a good project manager is a structured, structure). It also determines whether an individual
systematic individual. On the other hand, it has been prefers a thinking orientation (high cognitive com-
suggested that an effective project manager is one who plexity), or an action orientation (low cognitive com-
adopts a `whole-brained' approach, and that relying on plexity). The value orientation is manifest in a focus
a singularly structured, analytical perspective is not either on task and technical concerns (task orientation)
enough [10]. Legitimate arguments can be made for or on human and social concerns (people orientation).
both positions. However, regardless of what mold a Using the two dimensions of cognitive complexity
project manager should ®t, discussion has been lim- and value orientation, four primary decision styles can
ited, particularly with respect to the manner in which be identi®ed: directive, analytical, conceptual, and
project managers choose to make decisions and solve behavioral. Very brie¯y, an individual possessing a
problems. dominant directive style tends to be systematic, ef®-
In this paper, we present the ®ndings of a survey of cient, decisive, and structured. Individuals possessing
US project managers who were evaluated to identify a dominant analytical style would focus on analysis,
their propensity toward a particular style of decision forecasting, and detailed planning. A dominant con-
making. ceptual style characterizes individuals who are more
complex, creative, adopt a broad outlook, tend to take
more risks and who dislike following rules. Lastly, an
2. An overview of the literature individual possessing a dominant behavioral style is
people-oriented, adopts loose control, and prefers oral
Managers, including software development project to written communication. For a more detailed
managers, are required to assess situations continu- description, see Rowe and Mason's work. The DSI
ously and make decisions regarding production, devel- also measures an individual's brain dominanceÐ
opment, and resource allocation. A study describing either right-brained or left-brained oriented. Brain
the various functions performed by project managers dominance (variously also known as hemispheric
indicates that the most important of these functions is asymmetry, cerebral laterality, etc.) has been the sub-
decision making. The manner in which a manager ject of study for well over a century. Studies show that
makes decisions is important in understanding how each brain hemisphere provides the primary mental
effective he or she will be in a given situation. It has support for certain specialized functions [1]: it has
been stated that decision style captures those key been posited that a person's left hemisphere is more
aspects of a manager's belief system that are applied analytic, rational, sequential, and propositional, while
in decision making, often unconsciously. It is the the right hemisphere is more holistic, intuitive, par-
individual preferences that make up a style that deter- allel, and appositional.
mine the types of experiences and information that are More recent work in the information systems
stored and later used in decision making [5]. domain seems to be generally centered on the `analy-
Rowe's approach to examining decision style tic' versus `intuitive' dichotomy [4] based on Jungian
evolved through the development of his cognitive topology. Within this dichotomy, analytic individuals
contingency decision style model and, subsequently, are viewed as being more attentive to detail and de®ne
his Decision Style Inventory (DSI) [7], both of which solutions in terms of the methodology employed,
are based on what he termed the `four force' model whereas intuitive individuals focus more on patterns
[8]. The forces of interest are personal needs, envir- and de®ne solutions in terms of `®t.'
onmental pressures, group demands, and task require- The DSI also provides a measure of a person's
ments. Together, these in¯uence the way a decision propensity towards either an action orientation or an
maker responds to a situation. Rowe's Model further idea orientation. Idea-oriented people are described as
focuses on two dimensions, cognitive complexity and more concerned with analysis, perspective, judgment,
value orientation; together these are used to describe visualizing, innovation, creativity, music, art, writing,
T.L. Fox, J.W. Spence / Information & Management 36 (1999) 313±320 315
and new approaches, while action-oriented individuals 4. The results of the study
tend to work well with others, are concerned
with achieving results, and choose occupations that A total of 201 surveys were completed and returned,
require direct involvement and interacting with the representing a response rate of 19.8%. Prior to com-
public. pleting the DSI, the subjects were asked to provide
Lastly, the DSI measures an individual's propensity additional demographic information. The subjects
towards a speci®c level of decision making, classi®ed indicated that they had an average of 8.6 years of
as either executive, middle-management, or staff. By experience in the ®eld of information systems and 9
combining the basic decision style scores, the degree years of project management experience. The com-
of this propensity can be identi®ed. panies in which the majority of the subjects worked
Slevin and Pinto contend that `successful project were described as focusing either on engineering or
management is greatly affected by the information and software development. The types of projects managed
power in the system;' information in and about a or developed by the subjects within the past 3 years
system can be obtained from many sources, but power were primarily for in-house use, to satisfy a commer-
is manifest in the self-selected decision style of the cial contract, or directly developed for sale to external
project manager [9]. The focus of this study is on customers. A much larger number of projects worked
identifying, via several measures, the various decision on in the past 3 years were completed within 6 months
styles possessed by software development project or less, but more time was expended in managing
managers. projects having a duration of greater than 6 months.
Table 1
Propensity toward decision style
Table 2
Decision style percentage by propensity
In fact, the project managers responding to the duals' `left brain' score can be derived, and by adding
survey actually possess a tendency toward adopting the conceptual and behavioral scores the `right-brain'
several backup decision styles as opposed to one score is determined. Of the 201 subjects, 104 were
dominant decision style. In all but the analytical case, found to be left-brain dominant, 92 were found to be
the highest percentage of propensity is at the `least' right-brain dominant, and 5 were found to have
level. This is an obvious resultÐwhen one or two `mixed' dominance. These results are consistent with
styles are found to be dominant, and particularly very the subject breakdown by decision styles. Combining
dominant, the other styles, by default, have to have the number of individuals with either a very dominant
lower levels of propensity. or dominant propensity towards the directive and
analytical styles, and comparing this with like mea-
4.2. Brain dominance sures for the conceptual and behavioral styles, results
in an almost even match.
The DSI can also be used to determine brain
dominance, or the tendency for one side of the brain 4.3. Idea versus action orientation
to be more dominant than the other; an individual
found to be `left-brain' dominant would tend to have a In a further analysis, an individual's inclination
strong technical focus and be inclined towards logical towards either an idea orientation or an action orienta-
thinking, while the `right-brain' dominant would tend tion was extracted. Combining an individual's analy-
to have a strong concern for individuals and prefer tical and conceptual scores provides an indication of
broad thinking and creative approaches. By adding the their inclination toward an idea orientation, while
analytical and directive scores from the DSI, indivi- combining their directive and behavioral scores indi-
T.L. Fox, J.W. Spence / Information & Management 36 (1999) 313±320 317
cates their tendency towards an action orientation. son, Amato and Pate [3], that managers change their
Again, two very de®nite groups were identi®ed: 89 preferred decision style over time, and when faced
individuals possessed an idea orientation, 104 indivi- with more complex problems, they tended to migrate
duals possessed an action orientation, and eight had an toward an `integrated' decision style.
inclination towards a dual (both idea and action) Project managers are almost evenly split between
orientation. left- and right-brain dominant individuals. Very few
were found to be mixed-dominant. On an individual
4.4. Level of decision-making orientation basis, the vast majority of project managers favor
either a left- or right-brain approach. In addition,
The ®nal analysis identi®ed an individual's propen- there is no clear tendency among project managers
sity toward executive, middle-management, or staff- with regard to idea/action orientation. Similar to
level decision-making orientation. The measure of the brain-dominance, relatively few individuals possess
inclination towards executive-level decision making is a tendency towards a dual orientation, preferring
determined by adding an individual's conceptual and either an idea or action orientation. Thus, whether
directive style scores. An individual's inclination examined on either a brain dominance or an idea/
towards middle-management decision making is action orientation basis, project managers do not
established by combining the directive, analytical, exhibit `whole-brain' tendencies.
and conceptual decision styles. The measure of an Although more project managers fell into the staff-
individual's inclination towards staff-level decision level decision-making category, middle-management
making is designated by the combination of analytical and executive-level decision-making categories were
and behavioral decision-style scores. well represented in the sample. We also found that
The subjects of this study exhibited the following many project managers may be classi®ed as preferring
distribution: 71 subjects indicated an executive decision more than one decision-level orientation.
making orientation, 92 indicated a middle management A cross-tabulation of the various project manager
decision making orientation, and 135 indicated a staff characteristics and their interrelationships is summar-
level decision making orientation. The sum of this ized in Table 3. The values along the diagonal represent
distribution (298) indicates that several project man- the number of project managers in a particular category.
agers had a tendency towards more than one decision- For example, 35 of the project managers indicated their
level orientation. For those individuals possessing this most dominant decision style to be directive, 109 were
multiple-leveltendency,most weresplitbetweenadjoin- left-brain dominant, etc. Since the method of calculating
ing levels (e.g. executive and middle management, or brain dominance is directly related to the individual's
middle management and staff). Once again, this group of decision style measures, the vast majority of left-brain
project managers is clearly spread across each aspect of dominant managers were classi®ed as either a directive
decision-making style. or analytical decision style. Right-brain dominant man-
agers preferred either a conceptual or behavioral deci-
5. Discussion of the results sion style. Similarly, idea-oriented managers tended to
prefer either an analytical or conceptual decision style,
The results con®rm that project managers are a and for action-oriented managers, either a directive or
relatively diverse group and cannot be placed into behavioral style.
any one category or represented by a single stereotype. Project managers that demonstrated either a domi-
With respect to decision making, a substantial propor- nant directive or conceptual decision style were split
tion of project managers tend to prefer the analytical between a preference for either an executive or middle
and behavioral styles. Yet, a signi®cant number pre- management level of decision making. Project man-
ferred either a directive or conceptual decision style. agers with a dominant analytical decision styles are
Furthermore, project managers appeared capable of also split, but between middle management and staff
shifting to other decision styles as a backup, when the levels. Where the behavioral decision style was domi-
situation warrants, regardless of their predominant nant, managers were almost exclusively focused
style. This result con®rms ®ndings by Driver, Svens- towards a staff level of decision making.
318
T.L. Fox, J.W. Spence / Information & Management 36 (1999) 313±320
Table 3
A crosstabulation of style characteristics
Most dominant decision style Brain dominance Action/idea orientation Decision making level
Directive Analytical Conceptual Behavioral Left Brain Right Brain Action Idea Executive Middle Staff
management
Directive 35 33 3 28 7 29 21 9
Analytical 56 53 4 12 46 8 42 49
Conceptual 33 5 30 0 33 26 27 8
Behavioral 71 14 58 67 9 5 0 66
Left Brain 109 5 55 56 42 68 71
Right Brain 97 59 44 32 27 66
Action 112 8 29 19 86
Idea 97 42 74 57
Executive 71 53 5
Middle management 92 42
Staff 135
T.L. Fox, J.W. Spence / Information & Management 36 (1999) 313±320 319
When compared on a brain dominance to idea/ corresponding shift can occur in `situational' brain
action orientation basis, a sizable number of left-brain dominance, idea- versus action-orientation, and deci-
dominant individuals prefer an orientation towards sion level orientation.
action; however, a near equal number of project Project managers, on an individual basis, have very
managers preferred an idea orientation. Although clearly de®ned differences in their preferred style of
not as evenly distributed, right-brain dominant project decision making. However, taken as a group, project
managers are also split between idea- and action managers do tend to support the suggested need for a
orientation. This grouping helps illustrate that as a `whole-brain' approach to project management.
whole, this group of project managers does use the
`whole-brain' concept. Appendix A. An example of a sentence-beginning
With respect to brain dominance and decision-mak- and four alternative sentence-endings from the
ing level, the executive and staff levels are almost Decision Style Inventory is as follows:
evenly distributed between left- and right-brain dom-
inance, but for those individuals preferring a middle My prime objective is to. . .
management approach to decision making, the left-
have a position with status
brain dominant managers outnumber the right brain
be the best in my field
dominant by a 2.5 to 1 ratio.
achieve recognition for my work
Finally, with respect to the relation of idea/action
feel secure in my job [7].
orientation and executive/middle management/staff
decision making levels, those project managers pre-
ferring a middle management approach prefer an idea References
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