Students as Surrogates for Managers in a Decision-Making Environment: An Experimental Study

Administering and controlling a field experiment in the area of information systems is a continuing problem. A solution for many researchers is to use students in controlled laboratory settings as surrogates for real-world decision makers. This practice is often questioned in many business and social sciences disciplines. Research results from attitudinal studies suggest that students' attitudes are not the same as those for whom they are surrogates. Still, some research demonstrates that students and nonstudents respond similarly during decision making. This paper contains the results of an experiment to decide if students and industry decision makers made decisions similarly before and following a training program in the use of a DSS generator. Our analysis of the results suggests that students were not adequate surrogates for industry managers in the decision-making process. Consequently, we dispute the claim that students and nonstudents unequivocally perform similarly during decision making.

[1]  Ben M. Enis,et al.  Students as Subjects in Consumer Behavior Experiments , 1972 .

[2]  M. Gordon,et al.  The “Science of the Sophomore” Revisited: from Conjecture to Empiricism , 1986 .

[3]  T D Koepsell,et al.  Effects of expertise and experience on risk judgments. , 1983, The Journal of applied psychology.

[4]  Hal W. Hendrick,et al.  Differences in group problem-solving behavior and effectiveness as a function of abstractness. , 1979 .

[5]  Inder P. Khera,et al.  Are Students Really Poor Substitutes for Businessmen in Behavioral Research? , 1970 .

[6]  L. Berkowitz,et al.  External validity is more than skin deep: Some answers to criticisms of laboratory experiments. , 1982 .

[7]  Theodore J. Mock.  Comparative Values of Information Structures , 1969 .

[8]  J. J. Burnett,et al.  An appraisal of the use of student subjects in marketing research , 1986 .

[9]  James A. Senn,et al.  Research in Management Information Systems: The Minnesota Experiments , 1977 .

[10]  F. K. Shuptrine,et al.  On the Validity of Using Students as Subjects in Consumer Behavior Investigations , 1975 .

[11]  Ira J. Firestone,et al.  Implications of representativeness for generalizability of field and laboratory research findings. , 1980 .

[12]  Neal Schmitt,et al.  Student Guinea Pigs: Porcine Predictors and Particularistic Phenomena , 1987 .

[13]  Milton D. Hakel,et al.  CONVERGENCE AMONG DATA SOURCES, RESPONSE BIAS, AND RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF A STRUCTURED JOB ANALYSIS QUESTIONNAIRE , 1979 .

[14]  Bernard Alpert.  Non-businessmen as surrogates for businessmen in behavioral experiments , 1967 .

[15]  Irving M. Lane,et al.  A note on the role of laboratory methodologies in applied behavioural research: Don't throw out the baby with the bath water , 1988 .

[16]  J. E. Fleming.  Managers As Subjects In Business Decision Research , 1969 .

[17]  R. Ashton,et al.  Students As Surrogates In Behavioral Accounting Research - Some Evidence , 1980 .

[18]  William Remus,et al.  Graduate students as surrogates for managers in experiments on business decision making , 1986 .

[19]  E. M. Babb,et al.  The Potential of Business-Gaming Methods in Research , 1966 .

[20]  Harold Bierman,et al.  Choices with Risk: Beyond the Mean and Variance , 1970 .

[21]  Jeremiah J. Sullivan,et al.  The Effects of Manager’s Sex on the Assignment to a Challenging or a Dull Task and Reasons for the Choice , 1981 .

[22]  Herbert E. Miller.  Discussion of the Accounting Period Concept and Its Effect on Management Decisions , 1966 .

[23]  D. E. Stem,et al.  An Evaluation of Students As Surrogates in Marketing Studies , 1980 .

[24]  J. Sheth.  Are there Differences in Dissonance Reduction Behavior between Students and Housewives? , 1970 .

[25]  John H. Murphy,et al.  Are Students Real People , 1974 .

[26]  A. Rashad Abdel-Khalik,et al.  On the efficiency of subject-surrogation in accounting research , 1974 .

[27]  A. Tversky,et al.  Prospect Theory : An Analysis of Decision under Risk Author ( s ) : , 2007 .

[28]  R. L. Dipboye,et al.  Research settings in industrial and organizational psychology: Are findings in the field more generalizable than in the laboratory? , 1979 .

[29]  C. Whan Park,et al.  Students and Housewives: Differences in Susceptibility to Reference Group Influence , 1977 .

[30]  Gerald Albaum,et al.  An Investigation of Two Issues in the Use of Students as Surrogates for Housewives in Consumer Behavior Studies , 1977 .

[31]  Jerald Greenberg,et al.  The College Sophomore as Guinea Pig: Setting the Record Straight , 1987 .

[32]  R. Ferber.  Research By Convenience , 1977 .