While decision-making styles are key to achieving good governance, the impact of how representatives are selected is a largely neglected area of research. Drawing on an in-depth case study of Smart, a Belgian-French cooperative that created a novel decision-making committee with members selected through three selection methods—random selection, expert appointment, and appointed self-selection—we adopt the lens of role theory to investigate how the use of different selection methods to select representatives in decision-making bodies affects decision-making styles. We find that these different selection methods, through their effects on different configurations of role behaviors, contribute to either political or procedural decision-making styles. Based on our analysis, we make three important contributions to management research. First, we develop theory about how different selection methods, which are ubiquitous in most organizations, contribute to different decision-making styles. Second, we contribute to theoretical work on representation by countering and confirming some of the purported benefits of random selection in organizational democracy by theorizing several behavioral mechanisms. Last, we offer a role theoretic perspective on the theory of representation by showing how conflicting expectations of representatives can be beneficial for organizational governance.
