Establishing the relationship between managerial personality traits and decision-making styles within an agri-business

Abstract

Businesses, especially in the retail sector, greatly depend on their managers within the different branches to make the best decisions, not only for the company but also for its employees. This means that a manager's decisions can positively or negatively affect the company. However, individuals have different personalities, which may influence their decision-making style. The purpose of the study was to establish if there is a relationship between the personality traits and decision-making styles of managers of a leading agribusiness. Therefore, the study was conducted in the context of the South African private agribusiness sector, which saw many disruptive changes in the 1990s of which market deregulation was the most significant. Nevertheless, agribusinesses, which focused on their core business and invested in more efficient ways to satisfy their clients and improve their relations with their suppliers, ranked high in terms of performance, which suggests that their management made effective decisions. The method to collect the data that were chosen was a questionnaire that is completed online, and the scale used to measure the answers was the Likert scale. This scale was chosen as it measures the respondents' attitudes by asking the extent to which they agree or disagree with a question. The questionnaires that were used, were the Decision-making style inventory test and Big five personality test, both questionnaires are based on the Likert scale. A questionnaire with a five-point Likert scale was used to collect data from 65 managers to determine if there was a relationship between their personality traits and decision-making styles. The Big Five Personality Test, which tested for extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism, was used to determine the participants' personalities, and the Decision-Making Inventory, which lists analytical, behavioural, conceptual and directive decision-making styles, were used to determine the participants' decision-making styles. The research results suggested that there is a positive relationship between an individual's personality traits This outcome of the study might enable human resources managers to make more strategic placements and ensure that the best candidates for positions are selected.