Nonprofit Organizational Assessment

Other Factors Contributing to Advice Utilization
Financial
Several characteristics of the decision task or judge–advisor relationship have been
shown to decrease the effect of egocentric discounting. First, if there is a financial
incentive for making the correct or best decision, judges tend to rely more heavily on
their advisors. Similarly, when judges must pay for advice, that input is taken much
more into account than when it is freely given. The effect of paying for advice is thought
to have foundations in the economic theory of sunk costs.
Advisor Characteristics
In situations where the judges perceive the advisors to have expert knowledge, the
advice received is taken into account more, regardless of similarity to the judge's own
opinions. This finding is intuitive: the less someone knows about a situation in
relationship to their advisor, the more likely they are to take that person's advice into
account. Advisor characteristics commonly associated with superior knowledge such as
being older, more educated or more experienced also have been shown to decrease
egocentric discounting in decision-making situations.
Task Difficulty
Beyond advisor characteristics and financial factors, the nature of the decision task itself
can influence the degree to which advice is accepted. In relatively easy tasks, judges
tend to consider advisor input to a lesser degree than they should, based on the known
expertise of the advisor. Similarly, when presented with a very difficult task, judges tend
to over-rely on the advisor inputs. This dynamic is important to keep in mind when trying
to identify real-world situations where people are vulnerable to being extremely
influenced by people posing as "experts".
Accuracy of Judge's Final Decision
Consequences of Advice Utilization
Decision-making outcomes in a JAS (or other advice-giving structures) have been
widely shown to be more accurate than those from situations with isolated decision
makers. This result should be expected given that advice situations often allow judges
access to knowledge above and beyond what they could have as an individual. When
judges have access to multiple advisors with different information sources, their
decision accuracy improves even more. A potential reason for this is due to the
averaging across advisors that the judge does when integrating the different pieces of
advice. Like in forecasting, the individual variations between advice become less
pronounced, and judges are left with more definitive advice that has the strength of
consensus behind it.
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