Teamwork doesn't always work. (Photo : Getty Images)
People are more likely to pass the buck when faced with choices that affect others than when those decisions affect only themselves.
These findings were especially true when those choices had potentially negative consequences, said new research from Mary Steffel, assistant professor of marketing in the D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University in Boston.
From a series of experiments, Steffel and her collaborators found that people were two or three times as likely to delegate an unappealing choice on behalf of someone else than one on their own behalf when making a business decision, choosing a hotel and ordering meals.
"People care more about avoiding blame for bad outcomes than getting credit for good outcomes," said Steffel.
She noted that delegation isn't just about avoiding blame. The mere prospect of feeling responsible for others' poor outcomes is enough to increase delegation.
Consequently, people only delegate to others with the authority to shoulder the responsibility for the decision, researchers said. Participants in this research avoided delegating if they themselves would still be held officially responsible for the choice outcomes.
They also avoided delegating to co-workers below them, regardless of who would be officially held responsible because they believed they would still maintain responsibility and blame if the choice were to turn out poorly.
Steffel said the findings help shed greater light on understanding when and to whom people are likely to delegate decisions.
She said the study " can also help us understand why managers sometimes fail to delegate decisions to their employees even when not doing so creates organizational inefficiencies -- because they expect to assume blame for the choice regardless of whether they made it themselves."
Steffel collaborated with Elanor Williams from Indiana University and Jaclyn Perrmann-Graham from the University of Cincinnati on the research, which was published this month in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
