Seminar (Dept. of Organization and Human Resources)

Title: Going to Committee: How Team Revisions of Individuals’ Initial Judgments Enhance Decision-Making

Speaker: Kris Mikel-Hong (Department of Organization and Human Resources, Renmin Business School, Renmin University of China)

Time: 14:00 (Wednesday), November 20th, 2024

Venue: Room 706, Mingde Business Building

Language: Chinese/English

ABSTRACT:

In organizations, critical decisions made by individuals often must go to committee before being finalized, but does having a team revise an individual’s initial judgment actually improve decision quality? Contrasting traditional judge-advisor systems (JAS), where an individual judge has the final say on whether or not to integrate advisor input, this study examines the novel phenomenon whereby a team revises an individual’s initial judgment. Drawing on team decision-making research, we hypothesize that team revisions generally improve decision quality by integrating new knowledge, but that this effect is contingent on team knowledge availability and implementation factors, particularly with regard team knowledge diversity and intra-team ranking, respectively. Using a unique dataset of financial analyst forecasts in China, we find that team revisions significantly improve forecast accuracy, with team knowledge diversity positively moderating and the initial judge’s intra-team ranking negatively moderating this effect. Importantly, intra-team ranking, but not knowledge diversity, influences the likelihood of revision occurrence, highlighting the heightened importance of implementation challenges in the revision process. Our findings contribute to decision-making literature by elucidating the value and contingencies of team revisions. By exploring how collective knowledge integration and power dynamics shape decision outcomes, we offer novel insights for effective team design and decision processes in organizations.