Making a trade-off acceptable: what consultation does not guarantee
In Basel, a capacity allocation involving pharmaceuticals, life sciences, Rhine logistics and international R&D may be defensible without being considered fair. The managerial question is precise: does giving teams a voice make a decision more acceptable, even when their preferred option is not chosen?
What the literature establishes
E. Allan Lind, Ruth Kanfer and P. Christopher Earley (1990, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) show experimentally that an opportunity to express one's views can improve perceived procedural fairness, even when it comes after the decision. In their experiments, however, an opportunity to speak before the decision produces a more favourable judgment than an opportunity afterwards. Consultation therefore matters for reasons beyond its potential to change the outcome.
The role of uncertainty about one's treatment
Kees van den Bos, E. Allan Lind, Riel Vermunt and Henk A. M. Wilke (1997, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) show that procedural information carries greater weight in the evaluation of an outcome when other people's outcomes are unknown. The procedure then provides a reference point for judging one's treatment. In an international organisation, this suggests examining what teams actually know about comparable allocations, without assuming that the mechanism will operate identically.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that consultation alone is enough to secure acceptance of an unfavourable decision. Yet these studies concern judgments of fairness and evaluations of outcomes, not a guarantee of lasting support or sound trade-offs. A procedure perceived more favourably demonstrates neither that the criteria were appropriate nor that objections were addressed. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence cannot promise
These experiments do not reproduce long-term working relationships, regulatory constraints or dependencies between sites in a pharmaceutical company. Nor do they establish an optimal consultation period. In practice, counting participants is insufficient: an opportunity to contribute before a decision must be distinguished from an invitation to react after it has been finalised.
A practical check in Bâle
Within SHR's decision-making programme, an exercise applicable in Basel is to document capacity allocation decisions involving pharmaceuticals, life sciences, Rhine logistics and international R&D. For each decision, record the consultation date, decision date, objections received and responses provided; then calculate the proportion of decisions preceded by consultation in which objections received a documented response. After the announcement, collecting separate assessments of procedural fairness and agreement with the chosen option helps keep these two dimensions distinct. This monitoring verifies a practice and describes perceptions; it does not, by itself, demonstrate that consultation improves decisions. To go further: explore the Decision-making training in Basel in the canton of Basel-Stadt, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Decision-making in Basel
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