Demystifying the Role of Emotions in Decision-Making Sciences: A New HRD Indicator Dimension

Introduction

Decision sciences is an ecumenical concoction of theories from classical and neo-classical economics that believe decisions to be the outcomes of cost benefit analysis and psychological theories. Emotions are strong, predictable, beneficial and sometimes even adverse determinant of decision-making. The role of emotions in directly influencing, moderating or mediating decisions, actions and interactions in organizations along with emotional outcomes as consequences of any organizational phenomena is well proven and beyond doubt (Ashkanasy, 2004). This has led to decades of researches on emotions, emotional intelligence and decision sciences. However, not much has been studied on the strength of the relationship existing between the emotional components- Emotional Intelligence (EI), Emotional Labor (EL) and decision-making styles (DM) of managers that can have practical implications on the effectiveness of managers. Extant literature in behavioral economics has revealed the crucial role of psychological variables and emotions (affect state) in economic decision-making (Virlics, 2013). Studies have stated the emotional influence on decisions and the degree of transition from rationality to intuitive judgment caused by emotional mediation, through the trajectory of biases and choices adopted in the decision-making process (Seo & Barrett, 2007; Lerner et al., 2014; So et al., 2015). Herbert Simon (1983) had first proposed the concept of ‘bounded rationality’, that extended models of rational decision sciences to include factors related to cognitive and contextual constraints, illustrating a clear direction towards the role of emotions in decision sciences (Lerner et al., 2014).

The role of Emotions in predicting job behavior and understanding the theory of human rationality in decision sciences has received a lot of impetus recently (Lerner et al., 2015), owing to the growing number of behavioral and managerial issues in the dynamic work environment. Groundbreaking neuroscience has discovered that emotions and emotional intelligence (EI) play much important role than cognition in impacting individual attitudes, perception, personality, decision behavior and overall performance. Emotions are essential determinants of positive or negative work environment, employee effectiveness and overall organizational health (Di Fabio, 2017). It is found that refusal to acknowledge the integration of emotions in work processes and policies leads to dysfunctional and unhealthy work environment (Kuepers & Weibler, 2008). As quoted by Jim Rohn, “Our emotions need to be as educated as our intellect. It becomes significantly crucial for us to know how to feel, how to respond and how to let life so that it can touch others and us”(Rose Caiola, 2017). Although the concept of emotions and socio-emotional intelligence has emerged in the 1920s, but the recognition of their practical implications in the workplaces have been revolutionized in modern organizations of the 21^st century.