Graduate students as surrogates for managers in experiments on business decision making

Abstract Most laboratory research in business has used graduate or undergraduate business students as subjects. These subjects have been assumed to be suitable surrogates for business managers and, therefore, the experimental results should be applicable to real businesses. This experiment compared the decision making of line managers no lower than second level with that of students with no managerial experience. The level of educational achievement was held constant between the two groups. There were no significant differences between these two groups in making production scheduling decisions.