Asking One Too Many? Why a Leader Needs to Be Decisive
2011/03/29
研討會日期 : 2011-03-29
時間 : 14:30
主講人 : Professor Junichiro Ishida
地點 : Conference Room B110
演講者簡介 : Junichiro Ishida got his Ph.D. in Economics from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2000. He is currently serving as Professor of Institute of Social and Economic Research at Osaka University. His research field is in labor economics, applied contract theory, industrial organization, and behavioral economics.
演講摘要 : It is often touted that decisiveness is one of the most important qualities to be possessed by leaders, broadly defined. To see how and why decisiveness can be a valuable asset in organizations, we construct a model of strategic information transmission where: (i) a decision maker solicits opinions sequentially from experts; (ii) how many experts to solicit opinions from is the decision maker's endogenous choice. We show that communication is less efficient when the decision maker is indecisive and cannot resist the temptation to ask for a second opinion. This result also implies that a leader can be made better off by committing herself to taking an action immediately, if such a commitment is ever feasible. We also discuss the relationship between decisiveness and personal traits such as fairness, open-mindedness, and selfishness and derive some implications for organizational design.
