Proactive or Reactive: An Analysis of the Effect of Agent Style on Organizational Decision- making Performance

This paper addresses the issue of agent style—proactive and reactive—from a theoretical perspective. The results show that agent style, though often considered key in decision making, only affects the organization's performance when the organization is under moderate time pressure. Further, the effect of agent style depends on the type of training given to organizational agents and the internal condition under which the organization operates. This research suggests that, when resources are scarce, organizations should spend these resources on organizational design and on increasing the accuracy of incoming information rather than on altering the agents' style.