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An examination of the decision making styles of Egyptian managers

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DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-3658-3.ch013

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Business Strategies and
Approaches for Effective
Engineering Management

Saqib Saeed
Bahria University Islamabad, Pakistan

Mohammad Ayoub Khan

C-DAC, Ministry of IT, India

Rizwan Ahmad
Qatar University, Qatar
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Business strategies and approaches for effective engineering management / Saqib Saeed, Mohammad Ayoub Khan, and
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ISBN 978-1-4666-3658-3 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-4666-3659-0 (ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-4666-3660-6
1. Industrial engineering--Management. 2. Production management. I. Saeed, Saqib, 1970- II. Khan, Mohammad Ayoub,
1980- III. Ahmad, Rizwan, 1978-

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 219

Chapter 13
An Examination of the
Decision Making Styles
of Egyptian Managers
Hisham M. Abdelsalam
Cairo University, Egypt

Reem H. Dawoud
Financial Consultant, Egypt

Hatem A. ElKadi
Cairo University, Egypt

ABSTRACT
Many factors play roles in the success of managers. However, the manager’s decision-making style is
one factor that highly contributes to that success and, therefore, to the success of their organization. In
this chapter, a survey that includes a sample of 138 Egyptian managers in different organizational levels
(junior, middle, and senior) is conducted to explore their decision-making styles. The research, then,
investigates the relation between the variety of managers’ decision styles and seven variables: gender,
age, ethnicity, educational level, educational major, administrative experience, and current position.
Based on the findings, this research is able to provide baseline information to improve on the implica-
tions of decision-making styles on the selection and design of decision-support systems in Egypt.

1. INTRODUCTION be effective and productive in an organization,

One important key in a company’s performance
and success, or failure, is its management and
the chief role of management; that is of planning
and decision making (Yuki, 1994). In order to
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-3658-3.ch013
all managers at different managerial levels must
possess the ability to make valued decisions.
Decision-making is, thus, a crucial element of
a manager’s responsibility in day-to-day opera-
tions as much as in long-term oriented strategic
planning.

Copyright © 2013, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
 An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers
1.1. Decision Making Styles
While management is eternal and all embracing,
debates continue to rage as to what does and
should actually constitute management. The host
of definitions now available cannot cloud the
central fact that management is about decision-
making (Fitzgerald, 2002). Decision-making is a
fundamental function of management; it can be
described as synonymous with managing (Tam
et al., 1994), the essence of the manager’s job
(Robbins, 1999), and the essence of management
(Dearlove, 2001).
A decision has been defined as “an answer to
some question or a choice between two or more
alternatives” (Rowe, Boulgarides, & McGrath,
1984). At a very fundamental level, the ability
to make a decision relates to making choices
within a pool of alternatives (Hammond, 1999).
Various classifications of decisions are cited in
the literature: routine, creative, and negotiated
(Rowe & Boulgarides, 1992); programmed and
non-programmed decisions (Gibson, Ivancevich,
& Donnelly, 1994); operational decisions and
strategic decisions (Dearlove, 1998); and day-
to-day decisions, tactical decisions and strategic
decisions (Dearlove, 1998).
The majority of decision-making research
ascribes to the belief that decision-making is a
process. In order to reach an outcome of a proper
decision attention need to be awarded to the pro-
cess of decision-making. Thus, various decision-
making process models have been developed in
literature: general model for decision-making
(Gore, 1964); ideal decision-making model (Hill,
1979); the five point plan (Adair, 1985); traditional
analytical model (Geernberg & Baron, 1993);
synoptic model (Dearlove, 1998); six step rational
decision-making model (Robbins, 1998); and the
contingency model (Allwood & Selart, 2001).
All of these processes protract similarities with
regard to the basic approach to decision-making;
rational decision-making.
220
Decision-making is a human act; within the
decision making process information is structur-
ally managed by an organization through the
human manipulation of information (Streufert &
Streufert, 1978). The human actors are decision
makers who ultimately determine the choice
among the alternatives in the decision making
process. Significant research has demonstrated
variations among individual decision processing;
individuals within the decision making process
can act very differently (Jill, 2006). The person-
alization of such information processing has been
defined under the term cognitive style. Throughout
the years, literature has used the term cognitive
style to mean many different conceptualizations
(Leonard, Scholl, & Kowalski, 1999). However,
due to the complexity and variation in use, Rowe
and Mason (Rowe & Mason, 1987) proposed the
term decision style to mean the way a person uses
information to formulate a decision.
Decision style models classify an individual’s
cognitive process by integrating his/her ability to
understand, organize, think, process, and formu-
late information (Jill, 2006). Decision style is a
cognitive process, which represents the way an
individual approaches a problem (Rowe & Ma-
son, 1987). It reflects the way a person perceives,
thinks, and interprets situations. Related research
has revealed two key factors in how individuals
vary in making decisions; information use and
focus (Jill, 2006). During the past 40 years many
frameworks for investigating decision making
styles have emerged (Vroom & Yetton, 1973;
McKenney & Keen, 1974; Arroba, 1977; Harren,
1979; Merrill & Reid, 1981; Rowe & Mason,
1987; Nutt, 1990; Driver, Brousseau, & Hunsaker,
1993; Hersey, Blanchard, & Johnson, 1996). In
reviewing the various frameworks applied to the
decision making process, there remains a need to
investigate the implications of decision-making
styles among various decision-making contexts.
Moreover, a managerial decision typically
commits organizational resources to a course of
action in order to accomplish something that the
An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers
organization (and/or the manager) desires and
values (Fitzgerald, 2002). As international interac-
tions increase in frequency and importance, there
is a growing need to know how managers make
decisions in different parts of the world, and how
IT applications may support their decision-making
activities (Maris & Robert, 2007).
The decision-making styles of managers was
a focus point in the literature. For example, Fox
and Spence (1999) surveyed a group of over 200
project managers from across the United States
attempting to measure their decision-making
styles. The results of their study indicated that
project managers, on an individual basis, have
very clearly defined differences in their preferred
style of decision-making. However, taken as a
group, project managers do tend to support the
suggested need for a ‘whole-brain’ approach to
project management.
Steinberg (2003) investigated decision-making
styles of members in three managerial levels
within the South African Military Health Service.
Research findings indicated that throughout the
three different managerial levels, the behavioral
decision-making style was dominating. Alqarani
(2003) explored the managerial decision styles of
the managers of Florida’s state university libraries
and examined the relation between the variety of
managers’ decision styles and seven demographic
variables. As in the previous case, the behavioral
decision style was the predominant style for the
majority of managers, followed by the conceptual
decision style. It was also found that there was no
relationship between managers’ decision style and
their gender, age, or highest academic degree. On
the other hand, years of administrative experience,
ethnicity, position, and educational major of these
managers were indeed related to the decision style
or styles used by these managers.
Jacoby (2006) investigated to what extent a
principal’s decision style influences his/her ac-
ceptance and use of technology. The findings
indicated that a principal’s decision style has no
bearing on his/her acceptance and use of technol-
ogy. Finally, Maris and Robert (2007) attempted
to analyze the distinctively American, Japanese,
and Chinese leaders’ styles of strategic decision
making and the reflection of these differences on
information systems used.
1.2. Systems that Support
Decision Making
The term decision support represents all the
means (models, methods, tools, concepts) that
are available to the decision-maker in order to
make easier the decision-making. To improve
the cognitive process of the decision-makers, it is
necessary to have decision support aids through an
adapted Information System (IS). Every decision
support aid is equipped with its own realization
and implementation methods. In this research will
focus on five information systems: Management
Information Systems (MIS); Decision Support
Systems (DSS); Executive Information Systems
(EIS); Group Support Systems (GSS); and Or-
ganizational Decision Support Systems (ODSS).
Decision Support Systems (DSS) were first
developed in the 1970s, and have been used
widely since the PC revolution in the 1980s
(Maris & Robert, 2007). DSS can be described
as “computer-based systems that help decision
makers confront ill-structured problems through
direct interaction with data and analysis models”
(McNurlin & Sprague, 2004). DSS aim to enhance
the decision making process via providing tools
that facilitate the processing and analysis of large
amounts of data. DSS were originally developed
as tools for managers, but they are now also used
by many non-management employees (Maris &
Robert, 2007).
Executive Information Systems (EIS) are
intended specifically for executives. They have
been used to monitor and communicate company
performance data and to scan the business envi-
ronment (McNurlin & Sprague, 2004; Ba, Lang,
& Whinston, 1997; Elam & Leidner, 1995). An
EIS can be described as a DSS that “(1) provides
221
 An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers
access to (mostly) summary performance data, (2)
uses graphics to display and visualize the data in
an easy-to-use fashion, and (3) has a minimum of
analysis or modeling beyond the capability to ‘drill
down’ in summary data to examine components
(McNurlin & Sprague, 2004).”
Group Support Systems (GSS), formerly
known as Group DSS, are networked systems
that facilitate discussion by groups of proximate
or distributed individuals synchronously or
asynchronously (Maris & Robert, 2007). A GSS
includes software tools designed to focus and
structure group deliberation, reducing the cogni-
tive costs of communication as group members
work collectively towards a goal (Maris & Rob-
ert, 2007). GSS are designed to support decision
making of a group of people (a team) engaged
in a decision-related task. They are supposed
to reduce communication barriers, stimulate or
hasten exchange of messages, reduce uncertainty
or noise in group’s decision process, and drive or
regulate the group’s decision process (Desanctis
& Gallupe, 1987; Schmidt, 1991).
An Organizational Decision Support System
(ODSS) supports and organizes the division of
labor for decision-making inside a firm. It focuses
on an organizational process which cuts across
organizational functions and hierarchical layers
(Davenport, 1993). It supports interrelated but
autonomous local decisions, but its main help is
to coordinate these multiple local decisions with
the objective of optimizing organizational deci-
sion. An ODSS shares some characteristics with
other management information systems such as
DSS, GDSS, and EIS, but it has distinctly differ-
ent objectives and a broader scope (Holsapple &
Whinston, 1996; Kroenke & Hatch, 1994). It has
a strong organizational component not present in
a DSS or a GDSS and a coordination component
not present in an EIS.
This chapter aims to explore the decision-
making styles among Egyptian managers in dif-
ferent managerial levels. The results will provide
information needed on the expected needs on
222
different information systems used for decision
support. Following the introduction section, the
rest of this chapter is organized as follows. Section
2 provides the methodology used in this research
followed by results in section 3. Discussions are
provided in section 4, and finally, conclusions are
given in section 5.
2. METHODOLOGY
A survey made of 600 managers in Egypt was
conducted to gather information related to vari-
ous decision-making styles of Egyptian managers
in different organizational levels. Respondents
were asked to complete a two parts questionnaire:
demographics and the Decision Style Inventory
(DSI) developed by (Rowe & Mason, 1987).
Rowe and Mason (1987) took a management
perspective when attempting to understand, assess,
and improve decision-making, and defined four
decision making styles based on two dimensions
of thinking: cognitive complexity and values
orientation as shown in Figure 1. Cognitive com-
plexity refers to a person’s tolerance for ambigu-
ity as opposed to need for structure while values
orientation refers to a person’s task as opposed
to relational concerns. “The DSI, with fewer and
more managerially oriented questions, also mea-
sures style on the basis of its own theory, and it
also correlates highly and consistently with Jung’s
concepts as measured by the Myers Briggs Type
Indicator (Rowe & Mason, 1987).”
The DSI was developed to measure the relative
propensity to make use of four decision-making
styles: directive, analytical, conceptual, and Be-
havioral. The instrument consists of 20 sentence-
beginnings and four possible sentence-endings.
For each sentence beginning, the subject is asked
to rank each of the sentence endings by 8, 4, 2,
or 1, identifying which one is most like them, next
most like them, etc. A ranking of 8 indicates the
response that you most prefer, a 4 indicates a
response that you consider often, a 2 indicates a
An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers
Figure 1. Decision style model (adapted from Rowe & Boulgarides, 1994)
response that you consider on occasion, and a 1
indicates the response that you least prefer. From
these rankings, a score is summed up for each
decision making style to determine the propen-
sity of respondent towards each decision style.
The instrument, further, identifies: (1) an indi-
vidual’s propensity towards each style as either
‘very dominant,’ ‘dominant,’ ‘backup,’ or ‘least’;
(2) an individual’s orientation towards ideas ver-
sus actions; and (3) an individual’s orientation
towards executive, middle-management, or staff
level decision making.
The DSI has been tested extensively for valid-
ity and reliability (Leonard, Scholl, & Kowalski,
1999; Robey & Taggart, 1981). It has “a very
high face validity and reliability. Respondents
have almost invariably agreed with their decision
styles as shown on the test instrument” (Rowe &
Boulgarides, 1994).
2.1. Theoretical Framework
The decision style adapted by a manager may be
influenced by a number of variables. This research
aimed to study the effect of seven variables divided
into two categories as shown in Figure 2 on the
decision making style of Egyptian managers. The
research will, thus, examine the following seven
hypotheses:
H01: There is no relation between the decision
making style and the age (Mech, 1993).
H02: There is no relation between the decision
making style and the gender (Mech, 1993).
H03: There is no relation between the decision
making style and the educational level (Ben-
son, 1986; Yousef, 1998; Goodyear, 1987).
H04: There is no relation between the decision
making style and the total years of experi-
ence (Mech, 1993; Benson, 1986; Goodyear,
1987).
H05: There is no relation between the decision
making style and the level of management
(Benson, 1986).
H06: There is no relation between the decision
making style and the business type (Ali,
1989).
H07: There is no relation between the decision
making style and the total number of em-
ployees.
223
 An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers
Figure 2. Theoretical framework
3. RESULTS
Data collected was analyzed through both de-
scriptive and inferential analysis. Descriptive
analysis was used to describe the segmentation of
demographics of the survey and to: (1) identify the
decision-making styles of the Egyptian managers;
(2) determine their level of inclination towards
being idea or action oriented; and (3) determine
their level of orientation towards a certain level
of decision-making.
Inferential analysis was used to analyze the
relationship between the demographic information
(seven variables) of the individuals under study
and their decision making style. Chi-Square and
Contingency Coefficient test were used to test the
seven hypotheses mentioned above.
3.1. Sample Characteristics
The sampling frame of this study was based on a
database of randomly selected Egyptian manag-
ers working in different companies and diverse
sectors. Data was collected from the Egyptian
managers working in different fields such as fi-
nancial, construction and real estate development,
education and research, and other sectors. The mail
survey method was used to collect the data from
respondents, in addition to hard copies that were
224
distributed to managers in different organizations
to increase the number of respondents.
The questionnaire was distributed to approxi-
mately 600 Egyptian managers—Junior, Middle,
Senior—in different sectors of the industry. A total
of 156 responses were received yielding a response
rate of approximately 26%, however from the 156
responses, only 138 were useable, the remaining
18 were rejected as they were missing variables.
Table 1 presents the demographic characteristics
of the sample.
As the table shows, approximately 50% of the
respondents are between the age of 30 and 35,
and a total of 75% are between the ages of 30 and
40. On the other hand, a total of 88% of the
sample are middle and senior managers. This
finding can be also associated with the fact that
almost 80% of sample had less than 20 years of
experience. This leads to the conclusion that the
age bracket of senior and middle managers has
decreased among Egyptian managers, which is
different from how it was in the previous years,
when one of the main drivers to move up the
organization ladder was the age and number of
years of experience. The promotion of managers,
now, can be attributed to other factors such as
education. This can be easily concluded from the
table as 55% of the managers hold a university
degree and almost 40% hold a masters degree.
An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers
Table 1. Demographics characteristics of the respondents
3.2. Decision Style
The mean scores and standard deviations for the
sample on the four decision styles are presented
in Table 2. The Table, also, presents correspond-
ing scores obtained in Rowe and Mason (1987)
revealing almost identical nature of sample which,
in turn, allows us to use further analysis illustrated
by Rowe and Mason (1987). It must be noted
that these values do not represent dominance or
least favorable decision-making styles as it only
reflects mean scores. In order to interpret the
scores attained through the instrument in terms of
dominance, the scores must be mapped against the
different decision style intensity levels. According
to (Rowe and Mason, 1987), the typical scores
for each style are: directive – 75; analytical – 90;
conceptual – 80; and behavioral – 55. Differences
in scores from the typical scores can therefore be
interpreted from intensity or style dominance ac-
cording to the values reported in Table 3.
The propensity of managers to each of the four
decision styles is presented in Table 4, which
shows a matrix comparing different decision styles
with measured propensity. Most managers ex-
pressed a propensity towards the behavioral and
directive styles much more frequently than those
expressing a propensity towards either the direc-
tive or analytical styles. These results also reveal
the highest percentage of the ‘least preferred’
propensity towards the conceptual followed by
the analytical styles.
However, it is interesting to note that the per-
centage of decision styles at the ‘backup’ level is
much closer across decision styles. In other words,
while managers distinctly preferring either a
behavioral or a directive approach to decision
making, they can comfortably adapt to another
style as a backup.
Table 5 presents the data from the perspective of
propensity levels for each decision style. Looking
at the conceptual style, the ‘least preferred’ and
the ‘back up’ levels of propensity were reported
most often for this style. On the other hand, the
directive and the behavioral styles were reported
most often as either in the ‘back up’ or the ‘very
225
 An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers

Table 2. Mean scores on the decision style inventory

Decision style This research (Rowe and Mason, 1987)

Mean Standard deviation Mean Standard deviation
Analytical 86.8 14.5 90.5 16.5
Behavioral 60.7 16.3 56.6 15.5
Conceptual 73.9 12.8 74.8 15.2
Directive 81.4 13.9 78.0 15.3

Table 3. Decision-style intensity levels (adopted from Rowe & Boulgarides, 1992)

Decision style Intensity

Least preferred Back-up Dominant Very dominant
Analytical Below 83 83 to 97 98 to 104 Over 104
Behavioral Below 48 48 to 62 63 to 70 Over 70
Conceptual Below 73 73 to 87 88 to 94 Over 94
Directive Below 68 68 to 82 83 to 90 Over 90

Table 4. Propensity toward decision style

Decision style level Decision style Total

Analytical Behavioral Conceptual Directive
Very dominant 14 37 8 32 91
15.4% 40.7% 8.8% 35.2% 100%
Dominant 21 20 10 29 80
26.5% 25% 12.5% 36.25% 100%
Backup 53 49 53 55 210
25.2% 23.3% 25.2% 26.2% 100%
Least Preferred 50 32 67 22 171
29.2% 18.7% 39.2% 12.9% 100
Total 138 138 138 138

dominant’ level. Finally, the analytical style, the
highest percentage of propensity is at the ‘back
up’ level. Table 6 provides propensity levels for
each decision style per different managerial levels.
Surprisingly, the behavioral and directive styles
were the dominating styles on all managerial levels.
3.3. Brain Dominance
The next analysis of the DSI is concerned with
the determination of brain dominance, or the
tendency for one side of the brain to be more
dominant than the other. The right hemisphere is
the more creative and perceives things as a whole.
An individual with ‘right-brain’ dominant would,
thus, tend to have a strong concern for individuals

226
An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers

Table 5. Decision style percentage by propensity

Decision style level Decision style

Analytical (%) Behavioral (%) Conceptual (%) Directive (%)
Very dominant 10.1 26.8 5.8 23.2
Dominant 15.2 14.5 7.2 21.0
Backup 38.4 35.5 38.4 39.9
Least Preferred 36.2 23.2 48.6 15.9
Total 100 100 100 100

Table 6. Matrix of managers by decision style propensity

Management level Decision style level Decision style Total

Analytical Behavioral Conceptual Directive
Junior Very dominant 2 4 2 0 8
Dominant 1 1 2 6 10
Backup 10 9 4 6 29
Least Preferred 4 3 9 5 21
Middle Very dominant 8 14 1 20 43
Dominant 11 11 4 12 38
Backup 27 23 25 27 102
Least Preferred 19 17 35 6 77
Senior Very dominant 4 19 5 12 40
Dominant 9 8 4 11 32
Backup 16 17 24 22 79
Least Preferred 27 12 23 11 73

and prefer broad thinking and creative approaches.
The people who think using this side of brain
have a comprehensive sense of timing and they
can encompass many thoughts at the same time
using parallel processing of information. They
are also more artistic, appreciate space, imagery,
fantasy, and music (Alqarni, 2003).
On the other hand, the left hemisphere controls
logical and analytic thought and processes infor-
mation consecutively. It handles speech, pointing
and smiling as well as the abstract logic needed for
mathematics and verbal thinking (Alqarni, 2003).
An individual with ‘left-brain’ dominant would
tend to have a strong technical focus and be inclined
towards logical thinking. In general, right brain
thinkers exhibit intuition, while left-brain thinkers
are more rational (Rowe & Boulgarides, 1992).
By adding the analytical and directive scores
from the DSI, individuals’ ‘left brain’ score can be
derived, and by adding the conceptual and behav-
ioral scores, the ‘right-brain’ score is determined.
A respondent is either: ‘left-brain’ dominant if the
corresponding score is more than 165; ‘right-brain’
dominant’ if the corresponding score is more than
135, or ‘mixed’ dominant. Of the 138 respon-
dents, 82 were found to be left-brain dominant,
54 were found to be right-brain dominant, and 2
were found to have ‘mixed’ dominance. Table 7
presents the distribution of respondent’s brain-
dominance with respect to different managerial

227
 An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers

Table 7. Brain dominance in dif ferent

levels. While the ratio of left-brain personnel to
managerial levels
right-brain personnel is the double in the middle
management, this ratio is almost 1 to 1 in junior Management level Brain dominance
and senior managerial levels. The table, further, Left Right None
shows an inclination towards left-brain dominance Junior 9 7 1
(60% of the respondents). While senior and junior
Middle 44 21 0
managers are almost evenly split between left-
Senior 29 26 1
and right-brain dominant individuals, middle
Total 82 54 2
managers showed a great incline towards left-rain
dominance. In the three levels, very few (1.5%)
were found to be mixed-dominant.
inclination towards staff-level decision making is
designated by the combination of analytical and
3.3. Idea vs. Action Orientation
behavioral decision-style scores (Fox & Spence,
1999). The respondents of this study exhibited
An individual’s inclination towards either an idea
the distribution shown in Table 8.
or an action orientation can also be extracted form
As presented in the table, in the senior man-
the DS; combining an individual’s analytical and
agement level, only 32% of managers showed an
conceptual scores provides an indication of their
executive decision making orientation while about
inclination toward an idea orientation, while
40% showed an orientation towards middle man-
combining their directive and behavioral scores
agement decision making and 28% showed an
indicates their tendency towards an action orien-
orientation towards staff level decision making.
tation (Fox & Spence, 1999). As shown in Table
The same applies to the middle managers where
9, 101 individuals possessed an idea orientation
around 22% showed an orientation towards staff
while only 37 individuals possessed an action ori-
level decision making.
entation. Also, there was a clear tendency among
managers—in the three managerial levels—with
3.5. Hypotheses Testing
regard to idea/action orientation as the majority
of them showed an idea-orientation; 73% versus
Two statistical tests were used by to test the hy-
27%, respectively.
potheses outlined earlier: (1) Chi-Square Test was
used for the purpose of testing the independency
3.4. Level of Decision Making
level between two variables (Null Hypothesis of
Orientation
the test: the two variables are independent); and
(2) Contingency Coefficient Test was used for the
The final DSI analysis identifies an individual’s
purpose of determining the correlation between
propensity toward executive, middle management,
variables regardless of the trend or power of this
or staff level decision-making orientation. The
correlation (Null Hypothesis of the test: there is
measure of the inclination towards executive-
no relation between the two variables).
level decision making is determined by adding
With the results of both tests—reported in
an individual’s conceptual and directive style
Table 9—and the descriptive analysis illustrat-
scores. An individual’s inclination towards middle-
ing the distribution of decision making styles per
management decision making is established by
different independent variables—Figures 3-9,
combining the directive, analytical, and conceptual
this research was able to reject 4 null hypotheses.
decision styles. The measure of an individual’s

228
An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers

Table 8. Orientation of managers in different levels

Management level Action/Idea Orientation Level of Decision Making Orientation

Action Idea Executive Middle management Staff
Junior 2 15 3 10 4
Middle 18 47 14 37 14
Senior 17 39 18 22 16
Total 37 101 35 69 34

Table 9. Hypotheses testing

Hypothesis Statistics Critical Chi

No. Variable Chi p df 0.05 Null hypothesis 0.10 Null hypothesis
1 Age 18.03 0.058 12 21.03 cannot reject 18.55 cannot reject
2 Gender 8.21 0.021 3 6.25 reject
3 Educational Level 9.12 0.083 6 12.59 cannot reject 10.65 cannot reject
4 Total years of experience 17.87 0.018 9 16.92 reject
5 Level of Management 10 0.063 6 12.59 cannot reject 10.65 cannot reject
6 Business Type 19.18 0.042 12 21.03 cannot reject 18.55 reject
7 Total Number of Employees 23.7 0.011 12 21.03 reject

Thus, it can be concluded that the decision mak- 4. DISCUSSIONS AND

ing style of Egyptian manager is affected by two
personal characteristics (gender and total years of
experience) and two organizational characteristics
(business type and total number of employees in
the organization).
One of the surprising findings of this study
was the no significant relation between the indi-
viduals’ educational level and their decision
making style. Literature implies; that the man-
ager who has a lower degree is more directive
than the one who has a Ph.D.” (Goodyear, 1987).
The research findings revealed that most Ph.D.
holders have an analytical decision making style
followed by the behavioral. The conceptual and
behavioral decision styles were dominated by the
junior and middle managers.
IMPLICATIONS FOR DECISION
SUPPORT SYSTEMS
Marakas (2003) pointed out the importance of
knowing managers’ decision style on the design
of a decision support system to provide appro-
priate support for a particular style. Martinsons
and Davison (2007) argued that DSS, GSS, and
EIS are each more compatible with some deci-
sion styles than others and illustrated how each
of these systems may lend itself more readily to
different decision makers as shown in Figure 10.
This research adopts their model and extends the
discussions to include the other two tools: MIS
and ODSS.
The results of this research confirmed the
diversity of decision-making styles among Egyp-
tian managers leading to the conclusion that there
is no generic DSS; no DSS fits all. Respondents,
however, appeared capable of shifting to other

229
 An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers
Figure 3. Decision making styles per age
Figure 4. Decision making styles per gender
decision styles as a backup, when the situation
warrants, regardless of their dominant style. This
result confirms findings by Fox and Spence (1999)
and Driver et al. (1996) that managers change
their preferred decision style over time, and when
faced with more complex problems, they tended
to migrate toward an ‘integrated’ decision style.
230
This result is, also, aligned with the Situational
Leadership Theory (Hersey, Blanchard, & John-
son, 2001) arguing that managers must use dif-
ferent leadership styles depending on the situation.
In the research conducted by (Steinberg, 2003;
Alqarni, 2003) it was found that the behavioral de-
cision making style was dominating among senior
An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers

Figure 5. Decision making styles per education level

Figure 6. Decision making styles per years of experience

managers. The same case applies in the findings
of this research. This research concluded that the
behavioral decision making style is the dominat-
ing style among Egyptian managers followed by
the directive style and surprisingly, the analytical
style came as the least preferred. Generally, the
results showed diversity in decision-making styles
of Egyptian managers.
Egyptian managers, thus, are expected to have
limited interest in data processing and build their
decision mostly on intuition and relationships.
Their propensity to adopt GSS is, thus, much

231
 An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers

Figure 7. Decision making styles per level of management

Figure 8. Decision making styles per business type

higher than to adopt DSS; a GSS will provide
tools that aid multi-participant decision makers
in identifying and addressing different issues. On
the other hand, an ODSS with advanced technolo-
gies to facilitate communication will provide an
enhanced support that accommodates for different
levels in the organization and cuts the boundaries
among different organizational levels and func-
tional units. On the other hand, MIS is expected
to fit with the findings as it produces summary
scheduled operational reports that can be used to
provide information, advice, and explanations to
support specific decisions.

232
An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers

Figure 9. Decision making styles per number of employees

Figure 10. Information technology applications and decision styles (adopted from Maris & Robert, 2007)

233
 An Examination of the Decision Making Styles of Egyptian Managers
5. CONCLUSION
With the increasing business potential in the
Egyptian market and as organizations become
more decentralized and sound decision making is
pushed down the organizational ladder, it becomes
imperative to understand the variety of decision
making styles and the factors shaping those
styles. From an organizational perspective, sound
decision-making is a key success, if not survival
factor. This research tried to explore the different
decision making styles of the Egyptian managers,
and the elements affecting those decision styles.
The results would provide baseline information to
improve our understanding of Egyptian managers
and management.
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
Decision-Making: A choice within a pool
(two or more) of alternatives.
Decision Style: Is a cognitive process which
represents the way an individual approaches a
problem. It reflects the way a person perceives,
thinks, and interprets situations. Related research
has revealed two key factors in how individuals
vary in making decisions: information use and
focus.
Decision Style Model: A model used to clas-
sify an individual’s cognitive process by integrat-
ing his/her ability to understand, organize, think,
process, and formulate information.
Decision Support Systems: Computer-based
systems that help decision makers confront ill-
structured problems through direct interaction
with data and analysis models.
Executive Information Systems (EIS): A
class of decision support systems intended spe-
cifically for executives.
Group Support Systems (GSS): A class of
decision support systems that facilitate discussion
by groups of proximate or distributed individuals
synchronously or asynchronously.