Date of Award
5-1-1984
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Management
Abstract
Problem. The problem of this study was to determine if case-study analysis education was perceived to affect top-level executives in making operating decisions without favoring any of the twenty-two selected influences.
The term selected influences was adopted to represent the twenty-two inputs or variables that were selected as modifiers in the managerial decision-making process. These inputs to decision-making represent many of the functional, social and cultural areas influencing daily life.
Procedures. The study was conducted between September 1983 and February 1984 in the Vienna, Austria (Europe) area.
Seventy-seven top-level executives holding the position of Generaldirektor, Vorstandes, Geschaftsfuhrer, Minister, or Ambassador were interviewed. The interviewees were divided into four treatment groups representing the private and public sectors, those who had had and those who had not had case-study analysis education.
Analysis of data was computed using two subprograms from the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences entitled Frequencies and the Mann-Whitney U-Test. Frequencies was used to tabulate the number and the percentage of responses to each question in the Personal and Organizational sections, as well as the section entitled Decisional Balance Education.
The Mann-Whitney U-Test program was used to test two different groups of executives on a single criterion to determine whether the two groups differed. All measurements were tested at the .05 level with two-tailed probability.
Conclusions. The following conclusions were based on the perceptions of the seventy-seven Germanic executives interviewed in this study: (1) Case-study analysis education has not been effective as a modifier to the decision-making process. (2) Case-study analysis education develops the same level of decisional balance for both private and public sector managers. (3) Individuals with post-graduate degree in business have not been able to reach the top-level management positions in equal proportions with post-graduates from other disciplines. (4) A predilection in favor of persons whose education has been in law has existed in choosing top-level management. (5) Current managers have indicated a need to learn the skills normally taught in business management.
Recommended Citation
Painchaud, Richard L., "A Comparison of Perceptions of Selected Germanic Executives to Determine if Case-Study Analysis Education Affects Their Decision-Making Process" (1984). Theses and Dissertations. 1139.
https://commons.und.edu/theses/1139