Brain hemisphere characteristics of some Malaysian university managers in relation to their decision styles: A measurement model

This research embarks on a scientific journey of investigating the university managers' brain hemisphere or cognition; looking into brain sphere dominance. Besides, it examines the impact of brain hemisphere and characteristics in making decisions as well as determining the decision dominance style of the university management/mangers. Generally, the analysis of brain hemisphere function and style have been explored in the business setting, looking into how cognitive style of the managers has affect or influence their decisions and unfortunately there is a scarcity of studies examining this phenomena in educational arena. The sample of this study comprises the academic staff at three Malaysian universities with the total sample size of 694. Further, this study has applied Rowe and Boulgarides decision styles inventory/theory, which the theory is about how human cognition or brain hemisphere affects or influence human actions and behavior. DSI was adapted as an instrument for this study and Measurement Model or Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was employed to carry out the results. The findings of this study showed that, university "PU1" managers were Behavioral decision-makers, use "right-brain" hemisphere in making decisions, university "PU2" managers were Analytic decision-makers, use "left-brain" hemisphere in making decisions while university "PU3" managers were Conceptual decision-makers, use "right-brain" hemisphere in making decisions.