This study investigated the influences of personal value systems and risk propensities on managerial decision-making quality during value clashes. The post-globalisation business landscape is impacted by role players of vastly differing personal attributes, hypothesised to have varying influences on decision-making behaviour. A deeper understanding of how these attributes impact decision-making quality will therefore enrich the literature and arm practitioners with improved decision-making skills. A review of behavioural decision-making literature revealed three core approaches: the normative (prescriptive) perspective, focussed on decision analysis, the cognitive limitations perspective highlighting the boundaries of human cognition and the psychological (values/emotions/motivations) perspective allowing for ethical- or value-boundedness. The extant literature contributes little on the quality of decision-making exhibited by managers, or how to improve it. It also doesn’t consider variance in decision-making between groups defined by personal value and risk traits. This study therefore aimed to establish whether decision-making quality varied with variances in personal attributes, and whether an intervention would improve decision-making behaviour. The research, conducted on a sample of 460 South African managers, established the demographics and value- and risk orientations of the participating group. Three value clashing scenarios, incorporating social-relational framing interventions, where introduced to gauge the decision-making behaviour of the test subjects. Decision-making quality was assessed through the integrative complexity measure and qualitative assessments were conducted on the decision motivation texts. Decision-tree analyses, multiple regression analyses as well as T-tests comparing the decision-quality produced by individuals of opposing orientations, revealed a clear relationship between the value segments of self-enhancement and openness to change and higher quality decision-making. Social risk-taking was related to better decision-making and reframing the scenarios produced better decision-making quality responses, if the reframing was done harshly enough. The qualitative analysis supported these findings, but hinted at additional, context specific decision motivators. This study contributed an integrated view of decision-making literature, tested the application of integrative complexity as a measure of decision quality and introduced new perspectives on how value orientations, risk proclivities and scenario framing relate to decision-making quality. Practitioners can apply this to assess individuals in terms of their decision-making abilities, and can improve decision-making quality in managers through scenario re-framing. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / PhD / Unrestricted

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Along the Brazilian poultry production history, large volumes of data are generate by computational tools or manually collected on production environment. This data may be have implicit patterns, from which is possible to extract new answers to questions that can enhance the production scale. In this sense, this work was developed with a database from Languiru Cooperative of Teutônia, Rio Grande do Sul. Were evaluating lots of 112 associated producers in a five years period, from 2007 to 2012, a total of 2319 observations, and the broiler farms are located in different regions of cooperative scope. Data were tabulated and subsequently submitted to multiple regression analysis, comparison of means and data mining process. The results show that the environmental conditions and the altitude influence broiler production, changing the mortality and weight gain, it nas possible establish mortality and weight gain regression models, involving altitude and environmental variables. / Ao longo do histórico de produção avícola brasileira, grandes volumes de dados vêm sendo gerados por ferramentas computacionais ou de forma manual diretamente no ambiente de produção. Nestes dados, podem haver padrões implícitos, a partir dos quais é possível extrair novas respostas para questões que podem potencializar a produção em escala. Assim, foi desenvolvido o trabalho a partir de um banco de dados, oriundo de Cooperativa Languiru da cidade de Teutonia, no Rio Grande do Sul. Foram avaliados lotes de 112 associados da cooperativa, no período de 5 anos, compreendendo os anos de 2007 a 2012. As granjas localizam-se nas diferentes regiões que compreendem a abrangência da empresa, totalizando 2319 lotes. Os dados foram tabulados e posteriormente submetidos à análise de regressão múltipla, de comparação de médias e a mineração de dados. Os resultados demonstram que as variáveis ambientais, bem como a altitude influenciam no desempenho das aves, alterando a mortalidade e o ganho de peso, foi possível estabelecer modelos de predição de mortalidade e ganho de peso envolvendo a altitude e as variáveis ambientais.