Decision-making, risk and gender: Are managers different?

This chapter explores the nature of male and female decision-making and explicitly examines gender differences in decision quality and risk propensity. ‘Good managers, it is said, are those who make good decisions’ (Cooke and Slack, 1984, p. 3). Most management writers agree that effective decisionmaking lies at the heart of good management. Indeed, Drucker (1981, p. 374) argues that ‘The first managerial skill is . . . the making of effective decisions’. An organization’s success is to a greater or lesser extent, related to the decisionmaking ability of its managers.