scholarly journals How can biases affect entrepreneurial decision making? toward a behavioral approach to unicorns

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianpaolo Abatecola ◽  
Matteo Cristofaro ◽  
Federico Giannetti ◽  
Johan Kask
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Knowledge Creation ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Behavioral Approach ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
Entrepreneurial Ventures ◽  
The Social ◽  
Entrepreneurial Decision

AbstractHow can cognitive biases affect the birth and evolution of entrepreneurial ventures? In Entrepreneurial Decision Making (EDM), this lively research question remains largely unaddressed when the world of Unicorns, as a per se entrepreneurial species, is considered. Thus, through this conceptual article, we aim to contribute toward knowledge creation in this context. We start by proposing a conceptual framework of Unicorns’ EDM based on a behavioral approach. Through three propositions, this novel framework advances how the birth, transition, and consolidation of a Unicorn may be explained by the sequentially intertwined occurrence of biases, from which establishment and legitimization eventually emerge. We complement the framework with examples from the social media industry and then discuss its main implications for theory and practice.

Entrepreneurial decision-making: new conceptual perspectives

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (7) ◽  
pp. 1283-1300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaylee De Winnaar ◽  
Frances Scholtz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Environments ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Entrepreneurial Decision

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to call for inclusion of alternative but complementary conceptual perspectives in entrepreneurial decision-making theory and practice. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual approach, drawing on two sets of theoretical perspectives relating to decision making of entrepreneurs, is adopted. Findings The paper presents a conceptual framework of entrepreneurial decision making utilising the intersection between a metacognitive model of the entrepreneurial mindset and the recognition-primed decision-making theory. The paper argues that the convergence of these theoretical viewpoints provides a selection of decision-making processes for entrepreneurs in an uncertain business environment. Practical implications Decision-making models and tools are available to entrepreneurs; however, the relevance and applicability are restrained by the complexity and uncertainty of business environments in which entrepreneurs operate. New and more inclusive conceptual perspectives are required to improve the accuracy of decision making. Originality/value The study offers a framework that integrates two diverse theoretical dimensions of entrepreneurial decision making. The findings of this study provide direction for practice and for future research on entrepreneurial decision making. The paper intends to encourage researchers to support a new combined theoretical approach and to help practitioners better understand the reasons for entrepreneurial decision failure.

The Potential Role of Social Reporting in the Decision-Making Process of Cooperatives

2019 ◽  
pp. 115-131
Author(s):  
Fabio De Matteis ◽  
Daniela Preite
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Social Economy ◽  
Social Reporting ◽  
Social Report ◽  
The Social ◽  
Decision Making Processes

Accountability in the social economy sector is very important because it is inherent in the nature of the organizations of this sector. The literature on the topic of social accounting and accountability is abundant and highlights the benefits and the criticisms of social reporting. The objective of the chapter arises from the literature review that highlights how more in-depth studies are needed on the characters and role of social accountability in decision-making processes. In order to answer the research question (How is social reporting performed and how does social information influence the decision making of the management in a cooperative?), the single case study methodology has been adopted, considering embedded units of analysis and focusing on the social report of an Italian retail cooperative (COOP Lombardia). Thanks to the analyzed case study, it is possible to conclude that the social report can represent a tool of accountability that also informs future decisions, realizing a circular relationship between results achieved and decisions to be taken.

scholarly journals The consistency of UK pension fund trustee decision-making

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
GORDON L. CLARK ◽  
EMIKO CAERLEWY-SMITH ◽  
JOHN C. MARSHALL
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Pension Plans ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Defined Benefit ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Demographic Ageing ◽  
Individual Decision Making ◽  
The Social

An important research programme in the social sciences concerns the theory and practice of individual decision-making under conditions of risk and uncertainty. At the same time, it is apparent that western governments increasingly rely upon individuals to plan and maintain savings programmes to meet their income aspirations: the long-term retirement income of those outside of the welfare state depends a great deal on the competence and consistency of individual decision-making. In this paper, we use a set of problems requiring the same techniques of judgement to test the consistency of trustee decision-making. Respondents were a group of trustees drawn from select UK defined benefit pension plans compared with a larger group of Oxford undergraduates. It was found that many respondents were inconsistent across related problems requiring the application of probabilistic judgement. It is also shown that trustees were more consistent than many undergraduates and it appears that trustee education and professional qualifications can make a positive difference to consistent decision-making. A more challenging test that depends upon understanding the relationship between demographic ageing, immigration, and the financing of pay-as-you-go social security suggests that substantive knowledge and consistency of judgement are crucial components of expertise. Implications are drawn for the trustee institution and the wider debate over the role and significance of individual decision-making with respect to income aspirations.

scholarly journals Using practical wisdom to facilitate ethical decision-making: a major empirical study of phronesis in the decision narratives of doctors

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mervyn Conroy ◽  
Aisha Y. Malik ◽  
Catherine Hale ◽  
Catherine Weir ◽  
Alan Brockie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Medical Decision ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
Theoretical Understanding

Abstract Background Medical ethics has recently seen a drive away from multiple prescriptive approaches, where physicians are inundated with guidelines and principles, towards alternative, less deontological perspectives. This represents a clear call for theory building that does not produce more guidelines. Phronesis (practical wisdom) offers an alternative approach for ethical decision-making based on an application of accumulated wisdom gained through previous practice dilemmas and decisions experienced by practitioners. Phronesis, as an ‘executive virtue’, offers a way to navigate the practice virtues for any given case to reach a final decision on the way forward. However, very limited empirical data exist to support the theory of phronesis-based medical decision-making, and what does exist tends to focus on individual practitioners rather than practice-based communities of physicians. Methods The primary research question was: What does it mean to medical practitioners to make ethically wise decisions for patients and their communities? A three-year ethnographic study explored the practical wisdom of doctors (n = 131) and used their narratives to develop theoretical understanding of the concepts of ethical decision-making. Data collection included narrative interviews and observations with hospital doctors and General Practitioners at all stages in career progression. The analysis draws on neo-Aristotelian, MacIntyrean concepts of practice- based virtue ethics and was supported by an arts-based film production process. Results We found that individually doctors conveyed many different practice virtues and those were consolidated into fifteen virtue continua that convey the participants’ ‘collective practical wisdom’, including the phronesis virtue. This study advances the existing theory and practice on phronesis as a decision-making approach due to the availability of these continua. Conclusion Given the arguments that doctors feel professionally and personally vulnerable in the context of ethical decision-making, the continua in the form of a video series and app based moral debating resource can support before, during and after decision-making reflection. The potential implications are that these theoretical findings can be used by educators and practitioners as a non-prescriptive alternative to improve ethical decision-making, thereby addressing the call in the literature, and benefit patients and their communities, as well.

scholarly journals Pandemic and the Predicament of Labour Migration: The Indian Experience of Mitigating the Multifaceted Dimensions of a Humanitarian Catastrophe

2021 ◽  
Vol 04 (03) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhigyan Guha ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
Labour Migration ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Indian Experience ◽  
The Social ◽  
Push And Pull ◽  
Kinship Ties

The COVID-19 Pandemic has accentuated pre-existing global conflicts and fissures tremendously, and India has been plagued with multifaceted challenges from skyrocketing unemployment, demand and public debt crisis to the predicament of labour migration, characterized by a plethora of economic, sociological, political and humanitarian ramifications. The rudimentary objective of this paper is to offer a normative teleological insight into the de facto migrant labour crisis in India, while holistically juxtaposing myriad ontological and epistemological indicators, with an emphasis on the economic and human rights dimension of Pandemic-induced intra-state and inter-state labour migration. While assessing a series of macro-societal and cyclical developments, ranging from “Push and Pull” factors of labour migration, reactionary decision-making of the political establishment to the repercussions of cyclical lockdowns, the attitudinal and ideational component of the social order towards migrant labourers has been highlighted, when a virulent contagion has propelled systemic racial discrimination, cognitive biases, ethnocentrism, xenophobia and institutionalized otherization vis-à-vis the instruments of statecraft, during the pyrrhic rise of mobilization on the closures of borders. While the notion of physical and social distancing is antithetical to the rationale behind society and politics as collective decision-making arenas, the current health crisis has compelled to turn the lens back on the struggles and vast array of insecurities of migration and settlement. Additionally, this paper throws light on the immediate contours and trajectories of forced and voluntary labour migration, processes of assimilation and acculturation, how networks and kinship ties that migrant labourers bring with them shape the magnitude of internal and international migration by adding to the changing global demography. A series of speculative policy prescriptions have been suggested, advancing an ethos of care and respect.

scholarly journals An Infrastructure for Workplace Learning Analytics: Tracing Knowledge Creation with the Social Semantic Server

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adolfo Ruiz Calleja ◽  
Sebastian Dennerlein ◽  
Dominik Kowald ◽  
Dieter Theiler ◽  
Elisabeth Lex ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Workplace Learning ◽  
Knowledge Creation ◽  
Data Model ◽  
Learning Analytics ◽  
Common Data Model ◽  
Learning Tools ◽  
The Social ◽  
Show Evidence

In this paper, we propose the Social Semantic Server (SSS) as a service-based infrastructure for workplace and professional learning analytics (LA). The design and development of the SSS have evolved over eight years, starting with an analysis of workplace learning inspired by knowledge creation theories and their application in different contexts. The SSS collects data from workplace learning tools, integrates it into a common data model based on a semantically enriched artifact-actor network, and offers it back for LA applications to exploit the data. Further, the SSS design’s flexibility enables it to be adapted to different workplace learning situations. This paper contributes by systematically deriving requirements for the SSS according to knowledge creation theories, and by offering support across a number of different learning tools and LA applications integrated into the SSS. We also show evidence for the usefulness of the SSS extracted from 4 authentic workplace learning situations involving 57 participants. The evaluation results indicate that the SSS satisfactorily supports decision making in diverse workplace learning situations and allow us to reflect on the importance of knowledge creation theories for this analysis.

Social Cognitive Bias

2018 ◽  
pp. 110-132
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Ingroup Bias ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Social Decision Making

Within social psychology and sociology there is a field of study in charge of studying how the social group affects the individual in all areas. In fact, several studies have found that the social decision-making process can be influenced by cognitive biases. This fields establishes two large categories of social groups called ingroup and outgroup depending on whether individuals are part of this group or not. Therefore, an ingroup is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an outgroup is a social group with which an individual does not identify. Moreover, the psychological membership of social groups and categories can be related with different aspects such as race, profession, religion, among others, so that individuals can categorize themselves and others in different ways, usually dependent on the context. This categorization that individuals do based in the pertinence to a group and the influence of the group on the person reproduce in the person social cognitive biases that can lead to erroneous decisions. Within these biases the best known is the ingroup bias. This chapter explores some of these social biases and how they influence the decision-making process.

scholarly journals A round of dancing and then one more: embedding intuition in the ballet of entrepreneurial decision making

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Fakhar Manesh ◽  
Giulia Flamini ◽  
Damiano Petrolo ◽  
Rocco Palumbo
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Entrepreneurial Ventures ◽  
Lindy Hop ◽  
Unpredictable Environments ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Cognitive Knowledge ◽  
Entrepreneurial Decision

AbstractThe dance metaphor allows us to figuratively depict entrepreneurial decision making processes. Being conventionally conceived of as a sequence of purposeful behaviors rooted in a rational cognition process, entrepreneurial decision making can be featured as a ‘ballet’. This interpretation puts in the background the improvisational nature of decision making, which revokes ‘lindy hop’ as a dance style. The article intends to illuminate the role of intuition, highlighting its overlap with rationality in the entrepreneurial decision making dance. For this purpose, a bibliometric analysis followed by an interpretive literature review advances a comprehensive report of 66 peer-reviewed journal articles published from 1995 to 2019, constructing evidence on the nature of entrepreneurial decision making and on the interplay between intuition and rationality. Literature is categorized in five clusters, which are reciprocally intertwined. Firstly, intuition is unconsciously used as a strategy to deal with the uncertainty that inherently affects entrepreneurial ventures. Secondly, intuition is rooted in the entrepreneurs’ impulsivity, that echoes the role of emotions in decision making. Thirdly, the merge of rationality and intuition improves the entrepreneurs’ ability to keep up with the erratic rhythm of the decision making dance. Fourthly, the mix of intuition and rationality serves as a catalyst of entrepreneurs’ ability to thrive in complex and unpredictable environments. Fifthly, intuition generates drawbacks on entrepreneurs’ meta-cognitive knowledge, which should be carefully recognized. Embracing the dance metaphor, intuition turns out to be crucial to make entrepreneurs able to fill in the gap between rationality and uncertainty.

scholarly journals Using practical wisdom to facilitate ethical decision-making: a major empirical study of phronesis in the decision narratives of doctors.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mervyn Conroy ◽  
Aisha Y Malik ◽  
Catherine Hale ◽  
Catherine Weir ◽  
Alan Brockie ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Medical Decision ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
Theoretical Understanding

Abstract Background Medical ethics has recently seen a drive away from multiple prescriptive approaches, where physicians are inundated with guidelines and principles, towards alternative, less deontological perspectives. This represents a clear call for theory building that does not produce more guidelines. Phronesis (practical wisdom) offers an alternative approach for ethical decision-making based on an application of accumulated wisdom gained through previous practice dilemmas and decisions experienced by practitioners. Phronesis, as an ‘executive virtue’, offers a way to navigate the practice virtues for any given case to reach a final decision on the way forward. However, very limited empirical data exist to support the theory of phronesis -based medical decision-making, and what does exist tends to focus on individual practitioners rather than practice-based communities of physicians. Methods The primary research question was: What does it mean to medical practitioners to make ethically wise decisions for patients and their communities? A three-year ethnographic study explored the practical wisdom of doctors (n=131) and used their narratives to develop theoretical understanding of the concepts of ethical decision-making. Data collection included narrative interviews and observations with hospital doctors and General Practitioners at all stages in career progression. The analysis draws on neo-Aristotelian, MacIntyrean concepts of practice- based virtue ethics and was supported by an arts-based film production process. Results We found that individually doctors conveyed many different practice virtues and those were consolidated into fifteen virtue continua that convey the participants’ ‘collective practical wisdom’, including the phronesis virtue. This study advances the existing theory and practice on phronesis as a decision-making approach due to the availability of these continua. Conclusion Given the arguments that doctors feel professionally and personally vulnerable in the context of ethical decision-making, the continua in the form of a video series and app based moral debating resource can support before, during and after decision-making reflection. The potential implications are that these theoretical findings can be used by educators and practitioners as a non-prescriptive alternative to improve ethical decision-making, thereby addressing the call in the literature, and benefit patients and their communities, as well.

scholarly journals The Social Determinants of Cognitive Bias: The Effects of Low Capability on Decision Making in a Framing Experiment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Plante ◽  
Rim Lassoued ◽  
Peter W.B. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Determinants ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Loss Aversion ◽  
Cognitive Bias ◽  
Representative Sample ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Mind

According to leading sociological thinking, the mind is shaped by wider society. In this study, we administer a modified version of Tversky and Kahneman’s seminal framing experiment to a large and representative sample of Canadians. Our design allows us to explore which groups of people actually exhibit different cognitive biases. We find that the majority of people in our experiment do not exhibit loss aversion bias and that several people exhibit an opposite bias we call “turtling.” Turtlers prefer smaller certain options when choices are framed as losses and larger uncertain options when they are framed as gains. People that suffer low capability, measured by a person’s risk of experiencing low income based on their socio-demographic characteristics, are far more likely to turtle than others.

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