Understanding the role of locus of control in consultative decision‐making: a case study

Purpose – The study aims at clarifying whether locus of control may act as a bias in organisational decision‐making or not. Design/methodology/approach – Altogether 44 managers working at Skanska (a Swedish multinational construction company) participated in the study. They were asked to complete a booklet including a locus of control test and a couple of decision tasks. The latter were based on case scenarios reflecting strategic issues relevant for consultative/participative decision‐making. Findings – The results revealed that managers with low external locus of control used group consultative decision‐making more frequently than those with high locus of control. There was also a tendency showing that high externals more frequently used participative decision‐making than low externals. This was in line with the general trend, indicating that managers on the whole predominantly used participative decision‐making. Originality/value – The results of the present study are valuable for HRM practice, especially with regard to the selection of individuals to management teams.