This study attempts to explore how the number of alternatives and their relative quality affect the decision-making process (decision delay - the time required to make an acceptance or rejection decision) and the decision outcome (acceptance decision - acceptance or rejection of the current offer) when decision makers face multiple options. The results of a three-stage questionnaire survey of 128 actual graduate school applicants showed that (1) the number of alternatives at the time of decision making had a negative relationship with the acceptance decision, but this relationship disappeared after controlling for the relative quality of the alternatives; (2) the relative quality of the alternatives had a negative relationship with the acceptance decision, that is, if there were better alternatives when making the decision, people were more likely to reject the current offer; (3) the relative quality of the alternatives at the time of receiving the offer had an inverted U-shaped relationship with decision delay, that is, when the alternatives had a similar quality to the current offer, the decision delay was the most obvious (approximately 20 days), and the decision maker took the longest time to make a decision.

Authors:
Tun-Chun Huang, National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan
Yu-Zhen Huang, National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan

About the Presenter(s)
Huang Tunchun currently serves at the Institute of Human Resource Management at National Changhua University of Education. His expertise lies in employee recruitment and selection and impression management tactics.

Connect on ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tun-Chun-Huang?ev=hdr_xprf

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