Decision-making interaction between managerial dyads of public leisure service agencies

Abstract

This study investigated the impact of selected predictor variables namely: the leader-member interpersonal relations, job performance, and job involvement upon the mid-level manager's decision influence based on the top-level manager's and the mid-level manager's view. Two groups of paired top-level manager and mid-level manager participated in the study such as: the Parks group with 44 pairs of Director of Parks & Recreation and Superintendent of Parks and the Recreation group with 56 pairs of Director of Parks & Recreation and Superintendent of Recreation. The subjects were from 72 public leisure service agencies in the state of Illinois.

Path analysis was applied to determine the relationship between the predictor variable and the dependent variable. The study revealed that the Superintendents of Parks' and the Superintendents of Recreations' high job performance were significantly related to their high degree of involvement in executive decisions based on the Directors of Parks and Recreations' view. On the other hand, the Superintendents of Parks' and Superintendents of Recreations' high interpersonal relations with their superiors were significantly related to their perception of a high degree of involvement in executive decisions. A high quality leader-member interpersonal relations and a high agreement in decision influence were evident between the managerial pairs in the Recreation group, but not between the managerial pairs in the Parks group. In both groups, job involvement was not related to decision influence.