**1. Introduction**

In order to survive in the current competitive environment, both private and public organizations are constantly looking to reach organizational effectiveness and efficiency; however, the achievement of these results depends on organizational agents' level of effectiveness and efficiency (Inuwa 2016) and how good they are at making decisions (Simon 1947). According to the established literature, organizational agents' ability to make successful decision-making processes mainly relies, on the one hand, on the organizational environment (Wu and Lee 2016) and, on the other hand, on individual characteristics, such as emotions (Cristofaro 2019, 2020) and personal traits (Paniccia 2002; Cristofaro 2016, 2017a; Busic-Sontic et al. 2017). Among personal traits, the Core Evaluations (CE) (Judge and Bono 2001), namely the evaluations that individuals make about others, the world, and themselves (in this last case, we mean core self-evaluations, CSE), are those that have been receiving increasing attention from behavioral strategy scholars (Hiller and Hambrick 2005; Powell et al. 2011), due to their ability to predict job performance (Judge and Bono 2001) and to explain some facets of decision-making processes (Hollenbeck et al. 1988; Judge et al. 1998; Silvester et al. 2002).

However, despite previous studies hypothesizing that managers with high values of CSE (assimilated to hubris; see Hiller and Hambrick 2005) are intuitive thinkers, beyond any doubt of their capacities and that they significantly lead to positive results for their organization (e.g., Claxton et al. 2015), no one has empirically investigated these assumptions. Studies have investigated some trait pillars comprising CSE, such as self-esteem, in relation to decision-making process variables; however, there has not been any investigation at the group level of analysis (e.g., Jordan et al. 2007), even though the level is a common working unit within organizations (Koontz et al. 1980). Filling this gap, which can be substantiated by the research question: "*how do high Core Self-Evaluations influence team decision-making processes?*", is relevant also from a practical point of view due to the fact that personnel selection managers have been found to be biased and oriented towards selecting people that show high levels of CSE (Cristofaro 2017b).

In order to answer the aforementioned research question, a sample population of 120 graduate students was collected—divided into groups of four—to take part in a simulation game and they were asked to make decisions, in groups, acting the role of General Manager of a small-sized manufacturing firm. Tests aimed at identifying the CSE and intuitive/reflecting thinking approach of participants were administered; moreover, the performance resulting from their decision-making processes and their estimation of reached results were collected. Results of the work show a partial verification of the hypothesis that a high level of CSE leads to an intuitive decision-making process and a high level of performance; meanwhile, they are totally supportive of the positive relationship between a high level of CSE and being victim of overconfidence bias. Yet, results show that the average level of CSE is preferable to balance intuitive and reflective thinking as well as avoiding overconfidence bias and reaching the best performance possible.

Evidence produced really helps to understand the implications of the CSE trait variable for decision-making processes within organizations. Accordingly, prior literature provides evidence of the misattribution in considering a positive value of a high level of CSE as beneficial for performance (Judge et al. 2009; Judge and Hurst 2008). Yet, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study investigating the CSE trait variable at the group level—apart from also being the first to investigate, in depth, its implications for organizational decision-making processes. These results sugges<sup>t</sup> that, in terms of practical implications, human resource managers track the CSE level of each individual within organizations and sugges<sup>t</sup> composing teams accordingly to achieve better decisional and organizational performance.

The paper is structured as follows. First, readers of *Administrative Sciences* are informed of the basic assumptions behind the Core-Self Evaluation construct and concepts at the basis of decision-making processes. Second, the development of the hypotheses is provided. Third, the methodology is shown with details about the research context, i.e., the simulation game, as well as the data collection and analysis procedures. Fourth, results of the three one-way Analysis of Variance implemented to test developed hypotheses are shown. Fifth and last, discussion of the results in light of prior literature as well as implications for theory and practice are given.
