Abstract
Although groups provide their members with numerous benefits, they can entail drawbacks such as inaccurate decision-making (Janis, 1972; Myers & Lamm, 1976). A physical activity context in which both groups and decisions are prevalent – and where inaccurate decisions have severe consequences – is mountaineering (Burnette et al., 2011). However, we know little about the ways in which groups make decisions in these dynamic and uncertain environments and which factors discriminate between success and failure – or survival and death. Operating from a relativist-subjectivist position (Thorpe & Olive, 2017), leaning on the conceptual framework for sport teams (Eys et al., 2020) and IGLOO model of ecological nesting (Nielsen et al., 2018), we conducted an instrumental case study (Hodge & Sharp, 2017) of one male expedition training squad (3 coaches, 9 athletes) to advance our understanding of the phenomenology, consequences, and influences of group decision-making at the (aspiring) elite level of mountaineering. Analyses of participants’ daily questionnaire responses (https://tinyurl.com/2r5syb5m) across a five-day course of big wall climbing in the Dolomites show that most group decisions were unexpected but of moderate complexity and consequentiality and taken either by delegation to one member or group consensus. In turn, more group consensus and less member delegation related to higher athlete- and coach-rated decision quality whereas greater psychological safety related to higher decision satisfaction. To us, this suggests that mountaineering groups should pay attention to the processes with which they make even small decisions to ensure maximum decision quality, satisfaction, and ultimately safety.
