Comparative analysis of generations X and Y in terms of decision making styles and risk taking propensities

Decision making and risk taking behaviors have an important place in the lives of individuals. Throughout their lifetimes, individuals have to decide on many issues related to their private and working lives and to deal with various risks. The choices that individuals make in the aforementioned situations may affect both their lives and the lives of the people around them. Furthermore, differences can be seen between individuals' decision making and risk taking behaviors. On the other hand, from its birth the individual becomes a part of the group formed by all the people born in the time period in which it lives. These groups, which consist of individuals who are born in about the same years and who grow up in common conditions of the period, have similar thoughts and perceptions and exhibit common attitude and behavior characteristics, are called generation. There are some differences among generations in terms of various characteristics. However, individuals from different generations have to live and work together in almost every area of modern life. Therefore, it is significant to understand the differences between generations. Although there have been many studies related to generational differences, there are still a number of behavioral characteristics awaiting examination of possible relationships. Decision making and risk taking behaviors of generations are also some of these characteristics. In this context, this research aims to produce information that will set light to the decision making and risk taking behaviors of generations X and Y by examining and comparing decision making styles and risk taking propensities of them. The research is a quantitative study. The universe of this research is composed of the academicians who are working at Akdeniz University and the students who are studying at Akdeniz University. Decision making styles and risk taking tendencies data of the participants were collected with online questionnaire method and statistically analyzed with SPSS 21 software. The findings show that there are differences between generations X and Y in terms of decision making styles. The findings also show that there is a significant difference between these generations in terms of risk taking propensities. In addition, significant relationships have been determined between decision making styles and risk taking propensity.