New research explores why people ‘pass the buck’

People are more likely to del­e­gate decisions—or “pass the buck”—when faced with choices that affect others than when those deci­sions affect only them­selves, according to new research from Mary Steffel, assis­tant pro­fessor of mar­keting in the D’Amore-McKim School of Busi­ness at North­eastern University.

From a series of exper­i­ments, Steffel and her col­lab­o­ra­tors found that these find­ings were par­tic­u­larly true when those choices had poten­tially neg­a­tive con­se­quences. In domains as diverse as making a busi­ness deci­sion, choosing a hotel, ordering meals, and even par­tic­i­pating in exper­i­ments, people were two or three times as likely to del­e­gate an unap­pealing choice on behalf of someone else than one on their own behalf.

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.

Par­tic­i­pants in one exper­i­ment imag­ined that they or their bosses needed a hotel reser­va­tion for an upcoming busi­ness trip. Par­tic­i­pants were more likely to del­e­gate the choice to an office man­ager when the reser­va­tion was for a boss than for them­selves, espe­cially when the options were unap­pealing two-star hotels rather than lux­u­rious five-star hotels.

“People care more about avoiding blame for bad out­comes than get­ting credit for good out­comes,” Steffel said.

How­ever, avoiding blame was only part of the story.

In another exper­i­ment, par­tic­i­pants were again faced with the chal­lenge of choosing a hotel from a list of unap­pealing options. This time, they were told that they were booking a hotel for them­selves, booking it for a boss who would know they were in charge of that deci­sion, or booking it for a boss who would not know they were making the decision.

The researchers found that par­tic­i­pants were more likely to del­e­gate when the reser­va­tion was for their bosses and their bosses would know they made the reser­va­tion than when they would not know, again showing that people care about avoiding blame. But, people were more likely to del­e­gate when the reser­va­tion was for their bosses than for them­selves, regard­less of whether their bosses would know they made the reser­va­tion, showing that avoiding blame is not the only reason people del­e­gate choices for others.

“Del­e­ga­tion isn’t just about avoiding blame,” Steffel said. “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, the 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, researchers said, they believed that 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. Fur­ther­more, she said, “it 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.” This is a press release from Northeastern.