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The purpose of this paper is to examine when auditors' decision behavior is rigid and adaptive in the going‐concern judgment. Because rigid behavior has been found to produce inappropriate outcomes, understanding when decision behavior is rigid or adaptive can lead to improved decision making.

An experiment is conducted using cases based on real companies to produce information search traces as dependent measures that are studied in the ill‐structured and structured parts of the going‐concern task.

Auditors are adaptive in ill‐structured tasks and rigid in structured tasks as predicted by theory. Evidence of flawed decision making commonly found in studies of fixation and related concepts was not found.

The findings suggest the importance of explicitly accounting for task structure when studying decision behavior in situated contexts. Future research could assess whether task structure similarly impacts behavior in non‐auditing contexts.

Researchers and practitioners have long been concerned about inappropriate rigid behavior. This paper helps practitioners better understand when rigid or adaptive behavior is likely to occur to improve decision making.

Taking a novel approach to reconcile two well established but conflicting bodies of literature by focusing on “when” not “whether” people are rigid or adaptive, this paper resolves a long‐standing paradox. The implication for the literature is that reframing the question and directly measuring behavior demonstrates that individuals are neither rigid nor adaptive, but can be both as they follow behavior that is consistent with the demands of the task when the demands are defined in terms of task structure.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight how methodological and educational construction in the realm of higher education in management – which aims to meet the demands of current problems – depends on the recognition of open systems' dynamic complexity at their multiple levels, on the interdependence between ecosphere or ecosystem Earth and organizations and individuals, as well as on the integration of the neurocerebral system (as a complex unit of the whole) based on adaptive decision making as a feature that emerges from the system.

Having complexity as a background, this paper is based on post‐normal science and interdisciplinary practices to discuss the following points in an interrelated and non‐linear way: multidimensional organizations, decisions and strategies, teaching of strategic skills oriented towards adaptive decision making, metacognitive development and emotion/motivation.

The adaptive decision perspective adopted by post‐normal science encourages the incorporation of human characteristics and potentialities that are currently neglected in management sciences. Such characteristics and potentialities mean evolving from an understanding of the human mind as an automatic data processor to a logic that allows us to consider the interaction between emotion and cognition as well as between these two and their environment, thus connecting individual‐organization‐society. This paper suggests that teaching/learning strategic skills oriented to adaptive decision making depends on educators and students' metacognitive development and on identifying social and environmental conditions that are capable of promoting the emotional/motivational balance needed for such expression.

There is no empirical proof.

Management studies have been oversimplified by a pragmatic and deterministic orientation. This paper is a contribution to higher education management educators who wish to focus on new elements in these studies, thus preparing management students to act with more awareness and flexibility in an organizational environment that is increasingly complex and ever changing. This environment is beginning to be guided by competitiveness and sustainability in a dialogical way, thus creating complex relations between individuals‐organizations‐society.

To investigate the viability of adaptive reuse of commercial buildings and the impact it has on the sustainability of existing built environment in Western Australia.

A survey of building owners in Western Australia and a review of literature concerning adaptive reuse of commercial buildings.

The concept of adaptation is supported by building owners and there is a strong intuition/perception that adaptive reuse serves the key concepts of sustainability. Building owners are considering adaptive reuse as a viable option to demolition and redevelopment of existing facilities.

The use of a structured questionnaire limits the depth of responses in the study. A follow up study using interviews would allow further because it does not allow probing, prompting and clarification of the issues addressed.

Results from this research has implications for building owners and managers as it will eventually provide a theoretical framework that can be incorporated in the decision‐making process for adaptive reuse projects.

The contribution of existing buildings to the three tenets of sustainability has not been explored comprehensively in Western Australia.

This article demonstrates the value of adding a learning and adaptation component into the decision-making process.

By reviewing the case of Kodak’s decision not to focus its investments in digital technology in the 1980s the article introduces The Learning and Adaptation Decision Process, a model enables a firm to reassess analysis about future market disruptions and opportunities

Organizations need decision processes that are designed to be reviewed and rethought so they continue to provide fresh insight into how to prepare for disruptions and opportunities. This example shows how Kodak could have used its considerable resources to expedite its own digital camera technology, purchased companies with leading edge digital technology, put a digital technology-minded management team in place and lead the industry into the realm of mass market digital photography.”

A learning and adaptation approach might have helped Kodak take advantage of an opportunity to survive the disruption of its market and to avoid the eventual bankruptcy of the firm.”

The model introduced in this article can help leaders in a wide variety of industries review critical decisions, identify problematic outcomes, anticipate disruptions and prepare sooner for opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of organizational factors on individual decision-making under conditions of uncertainty and time pressure. A method to assess the impact of individual and organizational factors on individual decisions is proposed and experimented in the context of triage decision-making process.

The adopted methodology is based on the bias-variance decomposition formula. The method, usually applied to assess the predictive accuracy of heuristics, has been adjusted to discriminate between the impact of organizational and individual factors affecting heuristic processes. To test the methodology, 25 clinical scenarios have been designed and submitted, through simulations, to the triage nurses of two Spanish hospitals.

Nurses’ decisions are affected by organizational factors in certain task conditions, such as situations characterized by complete and coherent information. When relevant information is lacking and available information is not coherent, decision-makers base their assessments on their personal experience and gut feeling.

Discriminating between the influence of organizational factors and individual ones is the starting point for a more in-depth understanding of how organization can guide the decision process. Using simulations of clinical scenarios in field research does not allow for capturing the influence of some contextual factors, such as the nurses’ stress levels, on individual decisions. This issue will be addressed in further research.

Bias and variance are useful measurements for detecting process improvement actions. A bias prevalence requires a re-design of organizational settings, whereas training would be preferred when variance prevails.

The main contribution of this work concerns the novel interpretation of bias and variance concepts to assess organizational factors’ influence on heuristic decision-making processes, taking into account the level of complexity of decision-related tasks.

This article seeks to provide a theoretical framework for facilitating talent management decisions in the music industry.

Strategic decision‐making theory and the resource‐based view of strategy are used to identify the talent‐selection process as a core capability in the entertainment industry. Their original combination leads to the introduction of a framework aimed at facilitating the selection and development of core competencies and capabilities in music companies, and thus at increasing their likelihood of creating and sustaining a competitive advantage based on their artist selection processes.

The integration of both theories in the music sector leads to the need for the organisation's ability to “improvise” and develop “skilled decision makers”. The industry is identified as an atypical high velocity environment, in which incremental approaches may not be sufficient to adopt by managers, because artist investments usually represent long‐term commitments for the firm. Three different existing types of talent valuation techniques are identified, which can be facilitated by complementing resource‐based and decision‐making perspectives.

The paper does not discuss differences in the types of music organisations such as publishers, record companies, labels etc. Moreover, it focuses on popular music in general only. Empirical testing of the proposed findings is needed to further validate the capability framework.

The framework provides a managerial guideline for implementing decision models in the music industry and increasing the success rate of artist selection.

The paper uses the specific context of the music industry to introduce a methodology of how organisational decision processes may eventually lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. It provides a starting point for linking resource‐based and strategic decision‐making theory, since it indicates how decision models should be developed from a core capability perspective.

Sustainability and resilience challenges persist globally due to the lack of coordinated action among firms and community stakeholders. This is even more challenging for multinational corporations (MNCs) interacting across multiple, and often diverse, institutional environments. To be effective, MNCs’ sustainability efforts must respond to interdependent functions and systems in communities and rely on adaptive governance frameworks targeting long-term initiatives. The authors highlight the importance of public–private interconnections to promote resilience and enable the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). The authors introduce a methodology to analyze community resilience and present an in-depth, single case study of New Orleans. Findings provide important insights for the international business (IB) literature, but also critical implications for policymakers and practitioners.

Over the last 30 years, specific investigations into self-reinforcing processes in managerial decision making have been gaining momentum within the mainstream literature of management. However, to date, it is claimed that understanding these processes properly still requires additional research efforts. Thus, the purpose of this conceptual paper is to follow this claim.

The paper tries to inform the conversation about self-reinforcing processes in managerial decision making through adopting lenses drawing from the biological philosophy of organizational change. In particular, the co-evolutionary approach to organizational change, with a focus on CEOs, and/or top management teams (TMT), is adopted.

As its core contribution, the paper proposes that self-reinforcing processes in the CEOs/TMTs’ decision making can occur because of the emergence (and subsequent consolidation) of co-evolving heuristics. On this basis, the paper also prospect potential avenues for future integrations in this field.

As the paper concludes, advancing the general understanding of self-reinforcing processes in managerial decision making can represent an important opportunity for the research and practice of management in general, but also for some management sub-domains, such as that of behavioural strategy, in particular.

This paper introduces the seven empirical studies on vacation decision making in this special issue of IJCTHR. The paper compares the findings of these seven studies to traditional models of vacation decision making, and highlights a number of new perspectives for research into vacation decision making.

Five themes appear in these contemporary studies of vacation decision making: the multifaceted nature of the vacation; joint decision making by members of the household; impact of the type of vacation trip on the decision making process; the role of the internet in vacation decision making; and the role of socio‐psychological variables in vacation decision making.

The paper provides recommendations for future research in vacation decision making, in light of contemporary changes in the travel and tourism industry.

The value of this paper lies in its review of traditional approaches to researching vacation decision making, and advice provided for future research on the topic.

The “experience is the best teacher” model assumes that acquiring expertise in a given domain reduces biases. Research in expert knowledge in investment decisions has shown better ability to produce improved results in asset selection or portfolio returns. Universities created student-managed investment funds (SMIFs) to train students in portfolio management as fiduciaries. However, analyses of the effectiveness of the SMIF as a medium for expert knowledge transfer have not been done.

The authors’ analyze an SMIF's structure against established models of expert knowledge transfer, using the voting patterns of the trustees of the fund from the recorded minutes of the fund's meetings to show the fund's structure and outcomes demonstrate effective knowledge transfer. Voter consensus between faculty and student trustees is one proxy the authors use for knowledge transfer.

Consensus between faculty and students was uniformly high across all recommendations. Chi-square tests were employed to test for independence between approval of recommendation and level of consensus, showing dependence in most cases. Analysis of sale returns over the 12-year sample period showed significantly better performance of asset sales over relevant benchmarks for both equity and fixed income portfolios.

Most analyses of SMIF structure concentrate on well-known issues with things like student turnover, summers or other structural issues. Performance is evaluated based on returns. This study looks at the SMIF as an expert knowledge transfer medium and examines expert/novice decision approval in terms of knowledge transfer.