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Administrative Sciences
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Managerial and Entrepreneurial Decision Making: Emerging Issues
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Managerial and Entrepreneurial Decision Making: Emerging Issues

A special issue of Administrative Sciences (ISSN 2076-3387).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2020) | Viewed by 101048

Printed Edition Available!
A printed edition of this Special Issue is available here.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Matteo Cristofaro

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Guest Editor
Department of Management and Law, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, 00133 Rome, Italy
Interests: behavioral strategy; decision making; organizational adaptation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Maria José Sousa

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Guest Editor
Department of Political Science and Public Policies, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, 1649-026 Lisboa, Portugal
Interests: higher education; digital learning; pedagogies; digital learning technologies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. José Carlos Sánchez-García

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Guest Editor
Chair of Entrepreneurship, Social Psychology Department, University of Salamanca, 37005 Salamanca, Spain
Interests: entrepreneurship; sustainable entrepreneurship; innovation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Aron Larsson

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
Interests: multi-stakeholder decision making; decision analysis; decisions under risk and uncertainty; computer based decision support

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Following the conceptualization of bounded rationality by Herbert Simon in 1947, management scholars started investigating how people—managers and entrepreneurs—really make decisions within (and for) organizations. Taking into consideration the effect on organizational choices (e.g., new product development, market entry, merger and/or acquisition of other entities) and related performance (in organizational, economic, and social terms), a series of trends have flourished within this pivotal research area. At present, the main trends are the biasing or beneficial role of heuristics (i.e., cognitive shortcuts of human mind), the influence of sociodemographic characteristics and personality traits (see the derived Upper Echelons Theory), the impact of affective states (e.g., emotions, mood, temperament), the intertwinement between cognitive and emotional factors, the co-determinant role of the (micro-, meso-, and macro-) environment in the formation of choices with person-, group-, and firm-specific variables, and the biasing or beneficial impact of technologies on managers’ and entrepreneurs’ rationality.

The aim of the proposed Special Issue is to deeply investigate these trends in conceptual and/or empirical terms, trying to provide new insights into how managers and entrepreneurs make decisions within and for organizations. Papers that would deal with both these decisional figures must consider the similarity and differences of their decision-making processes and environmental influences. Research directions to be followed include but are not limited to:

  • What is the differential role of affective states in managerial and entrepreneurial decisions?
  • Does the cognition of managers interact with the one of entrepreneurs with similar or differential cognitive schemas?
  • Do new technologies (e.g., big data analytics) help or undermine decision-making processes? Under which conditions?
  • Does organizational culture help to reduce the negative influences of cognitive traps? How?
  • Under which conditions is heuristics beneficial for managers and/or entrepreneurs?
  • Does the personality of managers/entrepreneurs have a stronger or weaker impact on decisions with respect to their affective states? Under which conditions?
  • Is heuristics beneficial for ‘take the plunge decisions’ of entrepreneurs?
  • How can emotions be regulated in individual and group decisions? Are there similarities/differences?
  • How do the cognition and/or affective states of stakeholders impact those of managers and entrepreneurs?

Please feel free to contact the corresponding guest editor for questions about the suitability of the research paper with the aim of the Special Issue.

References

  1. Abatecola, G. 2014. Untangling self-reinforcing processes in managerial decision making. Co-evolving heuristics?. Management Decision 52: 934–949.
  2. Armstrong, S. J., Cools, E., and Sadler‐Smith, E. 2012. Role of cognitive styles in business and management: Reviewing 40 years of research. International Journal of Management Reviews 14: 238–262.
  3. Artinger, F., Petersen, M., Gigerenzer, G., and Weibler, J. 2015. Heuristics as adaptive decision strategies in management. Journal of Organizational Behavior 36: S33–S52.
  4. Baron, R. A. 2008. The role of affect in the entrepreneurial process. Academy of Management Review 33: 328–340.
  5. Bazerman, M.H., and Moore, D. 2013. Judgment in managerial decision making, 5th ed., New York: Wiley.
  6. Cristofaro, M. 2017. Herbert Simon’s bounded rationality: its evolution in management and cross-feritilizing contribution. Journal of Management History, 23: 170–190.
  7. Cristofaro, M. 2019. The role of affect in management decisions: A systematic review. European Management Journal 37: 6–17.
  8. Cristofaro, M. 2019. “I feel and think, therefore I am”: An Affect-Cognitive Theory of management decisions. European Management Journal. DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.(2019).09.003.
  9. Forbes, D. P. 1999. Cognitive approaches to new venture creation. International Journal of Management Reviews 1: 415–439.
  10. Hammond, S.H., Keeney, R.L., and Raiffa, H. 1998. The hidden traps in decision making. Harvard Business Review 76: 47–58.
  11. Hodgkinson, G., and Sadler-Smith, E. 2018. The dynamics of intuition and analysis in managerial and organizational decision making. Academy of Management Perspectives. DOI: 10.5465/amp.(2016).0140.
  12. Kahneman, D. 2003. A perspective on judgment and choice: mapping bounded rationality. American Psychologist 58: 697–720.
  13. Shepherd, N. G., and Rudd, J. M. 2014. The influence of context on the strategic decision‐making process: A review of the literature. International Journal of Management Reviews 16: 340–364.
  14. Simon, H.A. 1947. Administrative behavior. The Macmillan Company, New York.
  15. Zhang, S. X., and Cueto, J. 2017. The study of bias in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 41: 419–454.

Dr. Matteo Cristofaro
Dr. Maria José Sousa
Prof. José Carlos Sánchez-García
Dr. Aron Larsson
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Administrative Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Managerial decision making
  • Entrepreneurial decision making
  • Cognition
  • Emotions
  • Biases
  • Heuristics

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Published Papers (8 papers)

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Editorial

Jump to: Research

5 pages, 220 KiB  
Editorial
Contextualized Behavior for Improving Managerial and Entrepreneurial Decision-Making
by Matteo Cristofaro, Maria José Sousa, José Carlos Sanchéz-Garcia and Aron Larsson
Adm. Sci. 2021, 11(1), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci11010014 - 10 Feb 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3498
Abstract
Since the conceptualization of bounded rationality by Herbert Simon (1947), management scholars started investigating how people—managers and entrepreneurs—really make decisions within (and for) organizations [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Managerial and Entrepreneurial Decision Making: Emerging Issues)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

20 pages, 804 KiB  
Article
Enhancing Healthcare Decision-Making Process: Findings from Orthopaedic Field
by Irene Schettini, Gabriele Palozzi and Antonio Chirico
Adm. Sci. 2020, 10(4), 94; https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci10040094 - 25 Nov 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 5222
Abstract
In the healthcare field, the decision-making process is part of the broad spectrum of “clinical reasoning”, which is recognised as the whole process by which a physician decides about patients’ treatments and cares. Several clinicians’ intrinsic variables lead to this decisional path. Little [...] Read more.
In the healthcare field, the decision-making process is part of the broad spectrum of “clinical reasoning”, which is recognised as the whole process by which a physician decides about patients’ treatments and cares. Several clinicians’ intrinsic variables lead to this decisional path. Little is known about the inference of these variables in triggering biases in decisions about the post-discharge period in the surgical field. Accordingly, this research aims to understand if and how cognitive biases can affect orthopaedists in decision-making regarding the follow-up after knee and hip arthroplasty. To achieve this goal, an interview-based explorative case study was run. Three key-decisional orthopaedic surgeons were interviewed through a quality control tool aimed at monitoring the causes and effects of cognitive distortions. Coherently with the literature, eight biases come to light. All the interviewees agree on the presence of four common biases in orthopaedic surgery (Affect heuristic, Anchoring, Halo effect, Saliency). The other biases (Groupthink, Availability, Overconfidence, Confirmation), instead, depending on specific physicians’ intrinsic variables; namely: (i) working experience; (ii) working context. This finding contributes to the debate about the application of cognitive tools as leverage for improving the quality of clinical decision-making process and, indirectly, enhancing better healthcare outcomes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Managerial and Entrepreneurial Decision Making: Emerging Issues)
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23 pages, 285 KiB  
Article
Cognitive Biases in Critical Decisions Facing SME Entrepreneurs: An External Accountants’ Perspective
by Arno Nuijten, Nick Benschop, Antoinette Rijsenbilt and Kristinka Wilmink
Adm. Sci. 2020, 10(4), 89; https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci10040089 - 5 Nov 2020
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 6041
Abstract
Decisions by small and medium enterprise (SME) entrepreneurs are plagued by a variety of cognitive biases. Extant literature has mainly focused on a limited number of important biases (e.g., overconfidence) in a handful of important entrepreneurial decisions (e.g., start-up, market entry or exit). [...] Read more.
Decisions by small and medium enterprise (SME) entrepreneurs are plagued by a variety of cognitive biases. Extant literature has mainly focused on a limited number of important biases (e.g., overconfidence) in a handful of important entrepreneurial decisions (e.g., start-up, market entry or exit). However, putting the spotlight on a few important biases and entrepreneurial decisions could leave other important biases and decisions underexposed. SME accountants are in a unique position to shed a broader light on this issue. SME entrepreneurs often seek advice of their accountants when they struggle with decisions that involve uncertainty and business risks in the domains of strategy, regulatory compliance, human resources, IT, and succession. In this study, we explore 12 different biases and analyze whether their importance can change across these decision domains. Interviews were performed with 14 SME accountants who provide an independent third-party view on decision making by over 3000 entrepreneurs. Our findings suggest that the importance of most of these biases varies from one decision domain to the other. We also identified four approaches (warn, inform, intervene, and coach) that accountants can take when entrepreneurs may fall victim to biases. We discuss the implications for research and practice of SME entrepreneurs and their accountants. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Managerial and Entrepreneurial Decision Making: Emerging Issues)
19 pages, 510 KiB  
Article
Trusted Decision-Making: Data Governance for Creating Trust in Data Science Decision Outcomes
by Paul Brous and Marijn Janssen
Adm. Sci. 2020, 10(4), 81; https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci10040081 - 14 Oct 2020
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 7060
Abstract
Organizations are increasingly introducing data science initiatives to support decision-making. However, the decision outcomes of data science initiatives are not always used or adopted by decision-makers, often due to uncertainty about the quality of data input. It is, therefore, not surprising that organizations [...] Read more.
Organizations are increasingly introducing data science initiatives to support decision-making. However, the decision outcomes of data science initiatives are not always used or adopted by decision-makers, often due to uncertainty about the quality of data input. It is, therefore, not surprising that organizations are increasingly turning to data governance as a means to improve the acceptance of data science decision outcomes. In this paper, propositions will be developed to understand the role of data governance in creating trust in data science decision outcomes. Two explanatory case studies in the asset management domain are analyzed to derive boundary conditions. The first case study is a data science project designed to improve the efficiency of road management through predictive maintenance, and the second case study is a data science project designed to detect fraudulent usage of electricity in medium and low voltage electrical grids without infringing privacy regulations. The duality of technology is used as our theoretical lens to understand the interactions between the organization, decision-makers, and technology. The results show that data science decision outcomes are more likely to be accepted if the organization has an established data governance capability. Data governance is also needed to ensure that organizational conditions of data science are met, and that incurred organizational changes are managed efficiently. These results imply that a mature data governance capability is required before sufficient trust can be placed in data science decision outcomes for decision-making. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Managerial and Entrepreneurial Decision Making: Emerging Issues)
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18 pages, 1977 KiB  
Article
Managerial Decision Making in Indicating a Disruption of Critical Infrastructure Element Resilience
by Alena Splichalova, David Patrman, Nikol Kotalova and Martin Hromada
Adm. Sci. 2020, 10(3), 75; https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci10030075 - 16 Sep 2020
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 3724
Abstract
Managerial decision making is an integral process used in public and private organizations. Critical infrastructure entities are a strategically significant group dependent on the quality of decision-making processes. They aim to provide services necessary to ensure state security and to satisfy basic human [...] Read more.
Managerial decision making is an integral process used in public and private organizations. Critical infrastructure entities are a strategically significant group dependent on the quality of decision-making processes. They aim to provide services necessary to ensure state security and to satisfy basic human needs. The quality of decision making is an important factor in the management of these entities. The quality level is determined by many factors, the key of which is risk management. For this reason, it is necessary for the operators to minimize risks affecting the elements of the critical infrastructure through which these services are provided. Risk management is commonly used for this purpose, making it possible to assess and manage these risks. However, there is a specific group of threats that affects the resilience of these elements. The indication of these threats is not possible through common risk management. Therefore, it is necessary to develop specific scenarios of negative impacts and procedures for assessing their impact on the resilience of elements of the critical infrastructure. To this end, this conceptual article introduces an entirely new managerial decision-making process for indicating the resilience of critical infrastructure elements. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Managerial and Entrepreneurial Decision Making: Emerging Issues)
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22 pages, 431 KiB  
Article
Getting Nothing from Something: Unfulfilled Promises of Current Dominant Approaches to Entrepreneurial Decision-Making
by Richard J. Arend
Adm. Sci. 2020, 10(3), 61; https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci10030061 - 20 Aug 2020
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3729
Abstract
We provoke. In this conceptual piece, we challenge the value of two dominant models of the entrepreneurial process that have existed over the past two decades—the creativity school and the logic of effectuation. We point out their weaknesses and their unfulfilled promises, and [...] Read more.
We provoke. In this conceptual piece, we challenge the value of two dominant models of the entrepreneurial process that have existed over the past two decades—the creativity school and the logic of effectuation. We point out their weaknesses and their unfulfilled promises, and we argue for the field to move on forward with different ideas. We identify the lessons our field should learn so as to minimize the possibility of potentially detrimental model dominance in the future. We then outline three alternative approaches to modeling entrepreneurial decision-making that suggest further skills and policies required in improve the entrepreneurial process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Managerial and Entrepreneurial Decision Making: Emerging Issues)
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18 pages, 498 KiB  
Article
Under Pressure: Time Management, Self-Leadership, and the Nurse Manager
by Elizabeth Goldsby, Michael Goldsby, Christopher B. Neck and Christopher P. Neck
Adm. Sci. 2020, 10(3), 38; https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci10030038 - 28 Jun 2020
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 65056
Abstract
Decision making by nurses is complicated by the stress, chaos, and challenging demands of the work. One of the major stressors confronting nurses is perceived time pressure. Given the potential negative outcomes on nurses due to perceived time pressures, it seems logical that [...] Read more.
Decision making by nurses is complicated by the stress, chaos, and challenging demands of the work. One of the major stressors confronting nurses is perceived time pressure. Given the potential negative outcomes on nurses due to perceived time pressures, it seems logical that a nurse manager’s ability to lead nurses in moderating this time pressure and in turn to make better decisions could enhance nurse well-being and performance. Paralleling research in the nursing literature suggests that, in order to improve patients’ judgement of the care they received, nurse managers should embrace ways to lower nurses’ perceived time pressure. In this conceptual paper, we propose a model to help mitigate time pressure on nurse managers and their frontline nurses based on the research regarding time pressure, psychosocial care, time management, and self-leadership. Three metaconjectures and suggested future studies are given for further consideration by organizational and psychological researchers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Managerial and Entrepreneurial Decision Making: Emerging Issues)
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16 pages, 320 KiB  
Article
The Influence of Core Self-Evaluations on Group Decision Making Processes: A Laboratory Experiment
by Matteo Cristofaro, Pier Luigi Giardino and Luna Leoni
Adm. Sci. 2020, 10(2), 29; https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci10020029 - 7 May 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4998
Abstract
The personal trait called Core Self-Evaluations (CSE) has been receiving increasing attention from behavioral strategy scholars due to its ability to predict job performance and to explain some facets of decision-making processes. However, despite previous studies hypothesizing that managers with high values of [...] Read more.
The personal trait called Core Self-Evaluations (CSE) has been receiving increasing attention from behavioral strategy scholars due to its ability to predict job performance and to explain some facets of decision-making processes. However, despite previous studies hypothesizing that managers with high values of CSE are intuitive thinkers, beyond any doubt of their capacities and that they significantly lead to positive results for their organization, no one has empirically investigated these assumptions. This gap can be substantiated by the following research question: “How do high Core Self-Evaluations influence team decision-making processes?”. Answering it provides insights on how the evaluations that decision makers make about situations (and the consequent actions that are implemented) highly depend on decision makers’ inner traits and their effect on cognition. To fill this gap, 120 graduate students—divided into groups of four—took part in a simulation game and were asked to make decisions 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 show that an average level of CSE is preferable to balance intuitive and reflective thinking, as well as avoiding overconfidence bias and reaching the best performance possible. This work suggests that there is a huge misattribution in considering a high level of CSE as being beneficial for decision-making processes and consequent performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Managerial and Entrepreneurial Decision Making: Emerging Issues)
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