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The purpose of this study is to address a critical gap in enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation process for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by acknowledging and countering cognitive biases through a cognitive bias awareness matrix model. Cognitive biases such as temporal discounting and optimism bias often skew decision-making, leading SMEs to prioritize short-term benefits over long-term sustainability or underestimate the challenges involved in ERP implementation. These biases can result in costly missteps, underutilizing ERP systems and project failure. This study enhances decision-making processes in ERP adoption by introducing a matrix that allows SMEs to self-assess their level of awareness and proactivity when addressing cognitive biases in decision-making.

The design and methodology of this research involves a structured approach using the problem-intervention-comparison-outcome-context (PICOC) framework to systematically explore the influence of cognitive biases on ERP decision-making in SMEs. The study integrates a comprehensive literature review, empirical data analysis and case studies to develop the Cognitive Bias Awareness Matrix. This matrix enables SMEs to self-assess their susceptibility to biases like temporal discounting and optimism bias, promoting proactive strategies for more informed ERP decision-making. The approach is designed to enhance SMEs’ awareness and management of cognitive biases, aiming to improve ERP implementation success rates and operational efficiency.

The findings underscore the profound impact of cognitive biases and information asymmetry on ERP system selection and implementation in SMEs. Temporal discounting often leads decision-makers to favor immediate cost-saving solutions, potentially resulting in higher long-term expenses due to the lack of scalability. Optimism bias tends to cause underestimating risks and overestimating benefits, leading to insufficient planning and resource allocation. Furthermore, information asymmetry between ERP vendors and SME decision-makers exacerbates these biases, steering choices toward options that may not fully align with the SME’s long-term interests.

The study’s primary limitation is its concentrated focus on temporal discounting and optimism bias, potentially overlooking other cognitive biases that could impact ERP decision-making in SMEs. The PICOC framework, while structuring the research effectively, may restrict the exploration of broader organizational and technological factors influencing ERP success. Future research should expand the range of cognitive biases and explore additional variables within the ERP implementation process. Incorporating a broader array of behavioral economic principles and conducting longitudinal studies could provide a more comprehensive understanding of the challenges and dynamics in ERP adoption and utilization in SMEs.

The practical implications of this study are significant for SMEs implementing ERP systems. By adopting the Cognitive Bias Awareness Matrix, SMEs can identify and mitigate cognitive biases like temporal discounting and optimism bias, leading to more rational and effective decision-making. This tool enables SMEs to shift focus from short-term gains to long-term strategic benefits, improving ERP system selection, implementation and utilization. Regular use of the matrix can help prevent costly implementation errors and enhance operational efficiency. Additionally, training programs designed around the matrix can equip SME personnel with the skills to recognize and address biases, fostering a culture of informed decision-making.

The study underscores significant social implications by enhancing decision-making within SMEs through cognitive bias awareness. By mitigating biases like temporal discounting and optimism bias, SMEs can make more socially responsible decisions, aligning their business practices with long-term sustainability and ethical standards. This shift improves operational outcomes and promotes a culture of accountability and transparency. The widespread adoption of the Cognitive Bias Awareness Matrix can lead to a more ethical business environment, where decisions are made with a deeper understanding of their long-term impacts on employees, customers and the broader community, fostering trust and sustainability in the business ecosystem.

This research introduces the original concept of the Cognitive Bias Awareness Matrix, a novel tool designed specifically for SMEs to evaluate and mitigate cognitive biases in ERP decision-making. This matrix fills a critical gap in the existing literature by providing a structured, actionable framework that effectively empowers SMEs to recognize and address biases such as temporal discounting and optimism bias. Its practical application promises to enhance decision-making processes and increase the success rates of ERP implementations. This contribution is valuable to behavioral economics and information systems, offering a unique approach to integrating cognitive insights into business technology strategies.

This article aims to trace the historical development of the behavioral strategy (BS) field, which implements psychology in strategic management. Mainly, it provides a contextual understanding of how this stream of research has historically evolved and what relevant future trajectories are. This work is part of the “over half a century of Management Decision” celebrative and informal Journal section.

We consider BS literature produced in management decision (MD), the oldest and longest-running scholarly publication in management, as a proxy for the evolution of management thought. Through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) process, we collected – via the MD website and Scopus – a sample of 97 BS articles published in MD from its foundation (1967) until today (2024). Regarding the analysis, we adopted a Reflexive Thematic Analysis approach to synthesize the main BS topics, then read from a historical perspective regarding three “eras” over which the literature developed. Selected international literature outside the Journal’s boundaries was considered to complement this historical analysis.

Historically, within the BS field, the interest passed from the rules to rationally govern strategic decision-making processes, to studying what causes cognitive errors, to understanding how to avoid biases and to being prepared for dramatic changes. The article also identifies six future research trajectories, namely “positive heuristics,” “context-embedded mental processes,” “non-conventional thinking,” “cognitive evolutionary triggers,” “debiasing strategies” and “behavioral theories for new strategic challenges” that future research could investigate.

The limitation of the study lies in its exclusive focus on MD for investigating the historical evolution of BS, thereby overlooking critical contributions from other journals. Therefore, MD’s editorial preferences have influenced results. A comprehensive SLR on the BS field is still needed, requiring broader journal coverage to mitigate selection biases and enhance field appraisal.

This contribution is the first to offer a historical evolutionary view of the BS field, complementing the few other reviews on this stream of research. This fills a gap in the study of the evolution of management thought.

This study aims to explore the strategies corporations use in engaging stakeholders to sustain healthy corporate partnerships and create value for the corporate entity and the society in which they operate and their influence on the corporate manager’s cognitive abilities and decision-making.

The authors used an interpretive research approach leveraging the strengths of qualitative method of content analysis and comparative and critical analyses to report the results. Interpretive methods incorporate social theories and standpoints that view reality as the social construction of understandable events in the context of organizational communication.

The findings of this study suggest that corporations are assumed to follow and execute the principles of engaging stakeholders to achieve corporate social responsibility (CSR) claiming to manage a sustainable and responsible business practices that recognize local cultures, human rights and protect the environment. However, little attention has been paid to the cognitive reasoning of the individuals responsible for CSR and corporate sustainability (CS) as opposed to the growing concerns about strategies corporations use in engaging stakeholders to sustain healthy corporate partnerships and create value – especially the processes that take place during engagement and decision-making including cognitive offloading.

Stakeholder engagement requires practical approaches that enable corporations and individuals charged with decision-making responsibilities to understand, respond and fulfill their CSRs. To achieve CSRs, corporations and managers responsible for relevant decision-making would need to involve stakeholders in social performance planning, as social reporting/auditing has long been advocating for preventing managerial biasness, groupthink and increased information dissemination via detailed reporting practices toward more collaborative stakeholder relationships. Thus, it is crucial for corporations to implement enhanced stakeholder and managerial decision-making strategies such as integrative approaches to achieve balance in the trio elements of sustainability as well as the growing use of paradox perspective to understand the nature of the tensions being sought to balance and, in the process, provide opportunity for a better evaluation of complex sustainability issues for innovative approach to resolving them. While cognitive decision-making is at play, in practice, managers tasked with making decisions must ensure the most effective stakeholder engagement strategies that are transparent and inclusive are used.

The main contribution of this study is its argument regarding the tools corporations use in engaging key stakeholders and the cognitive reasoning of the individuals responsible for CSR and CS. The study further contributes to interpreting the integrative approach to achieving balance in the trio elements of sustainability as well as the growing use of paradox perspective to understand the nature of the tensions being sought to balance and, in the process, provide an opportunity for a better evaluation of complex sustainability issues for an innovative approach to resolving them.

This study aims to investigate the relationships between managers’ cognitive styles, dynamic managerial capabilities and firms’ perceived international performance. The study is based on cognitive-experiential self-theory, dynamic managerial capabilities and international entrepreneurship.

Data were collected from 283 managers of small medium enterprises (SMEs) in Türkiye, an emerging economy. The research was conducted using quantitative methods, and Smart partial least squares (PLS) 4 software was used for data analysis. The data were examined through structural equation modelling and mediation analyses.

Findings indicate that rational cognitive styles positively influence managerial human capital, managerial social capital, managerial cognition and perceived international performance. However, the effect of intuitive cognitive styles was confirmed only on managerial cognition. Additionally, it was found that managerial cognition positively affects perceived international performance, whereas managerial social capital has a negative impact. However, the effects of managerial human capital could not be confirmed. Moreover, a full mediation relationship of managerial cognition between intuitive cognitive styles and perceived international performance was identified.

This research carves out a unique niche by synergizing cognitive-experiential self-theory with dynamic managerial capabilities to investigate their conjoined effect on firms’ international performance, an area previously underexplored. Unveiling insights from burgeoning economies like Türkiye enriches the existing body of knowledge, offering substantial contributions to the field of international business.

This paper aims to identify the impacts of sociodemographic covariates on behavioural biases (BB) scores; the psychometric evidence of the BB measurement instruments; and the main BB that influences the decision-making of individual investors.

Papers were retrieved through search using keywords in ten databases. This systematic review is based on 69 peer-reviewed papers, most of which were published between 2017 and 2021. The relevance of the included papers was assessed through the analysis of statistical/psychometric methods used, and content analysis of the BB literature and its sociodemographic correlations.

Overconfidence is higher in men and not related to age. There was no consensus regarding the relationship between BB and other sociodemographic variables. Most measuring instruments are ad hoc, showing ≤ 4 types of psychometric evidence and assessing ≤ 9 BB. Therefore, the findings demonstrate that there is no gold standard instrument for measuring investors’ BB. Furthermore, 37 BB were cited as influencers of individual investors’ decision-making and overconfidence, herding, anchoring, representativeness and loss aversion were the most prevalent.

Considering that very few systematic reviews have been published in the behavioural finance area, this paper highlights the current state-of-the-art and identifies significant gaps in the literature that can be explored by further research.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic review that analyses the psychometric properties of instruments used for individual investors BB assessment.

The importance of sustainable development has become increasingly significant in today’s fast-paced world. The 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) aim to solve a range of environmental, economic and social challenges, which requires global collaboration among governments and private organisations. In light of this, social entrepreneurship has garnered significant attention as it combines the social purpose of non-profits with the market-driven approach of for-profits to address SDG goals. Yet the cognitive processes underpinning the career decisions of social entrepreneurs remain underexplored. This study aims to develop and validate a scale to measure social entrepreneurial career decisions based on the appraisal of perceived challenges.

The study followed the steps of tool development and was carried out in three phases: item analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

The final 20-item scale focuses on the appraisal components in pre-entry social entrepreneurial career decision-making and has four factors, which are relevance, coping potential, knowledge and resources and normative significance.

The study contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial cognition, specifically focusing on social entrepreneurship. The scale could guide model testing and quantitative research in social entrepreneurial cognition. The four-dimensional structure identified in the study may also have implications for researchers interested in the antecedents and effects of social entrepreneurial decision-making.

Accurate measurement of cognitive appraisal is necessary to understand the perceived challenges and thought processes of potential social entrepreneurs. The scale could be used to examine the cognitive appraisal patterns among students. Social entrepreneurship educators and policymakers can use the scale to design and assess educational programs.

Distinct from existing studies, this scale offers a multidimensional approach that captures the stages of career decision-making, providing a robust tool to enhance our understanding of the decision-making dynamics in social entrepreneurship.

The study attempts to investigate the relationship between emotional biases (loss aversion bias, overconfidence bias, and regret aversion bias) and investment decisions through a meta-analysis approach.

A meta-correlation analysis was done using sample size and correlation (r) data from several relevant studies that look at how emotional biases (loss aversion bias, regret aversion bias, and overconfidence bias) affect investment decisions. Additionally, beta coefficients (ß) were also converted to correlation coefficients (r) from six studies.

This study analysed 31 empirical studies and found a significant positive correlation between emotional biases and investment decisions [loss aversion bias (r = 0.492), regret aversion bias (r = 0.401), and overconfidence bias (r = 0.346)]. We set the statistical significance threshold at 0.05.

The review covered 31 online research publications that showed significant heterogeneity, possibly influenced by various methodological, population, or other factors. Furthermore, the use of correlational data restricts the ability to establish causation.

This is a novel attempt to integrate the results of various studies through meta-analysis on the relation between these emotional biases (loss aversion, overconfidence, and regret aversion) and investment decisions.

This study constructed an information search process model based on costs and benefits to reflect different information search processes under different decisions from a behavioural economics perspective.

This study used a deductive approach to conceptualise the costs, benefits, and uncertainties of the information search process. Subsequently, we constructed an information search process model based on the costs and benefits using graphical reasoning, loss aversion theory, bounded rationality theory, the satisficing theory of behavioural economics, and the uncertainty changes of information search process.

The model revealed four types of user behaviours in the information search process: (1) avoiding search at the initiation of the search process; (2) exiting in the middle of a search; (3) stopping at the point of satisficing; and (4) continuing the search until experiencing physical discomfort.

The model constructed in this study treats the information search as a process based on costs and benefits with uncertainty. This model integrates information search avoidance and stopping into an information search process model. The model identifies users’ bounded rationality by evaluating ideal and real situations. Moreover, the model explains relative and absolute information overloads and the area beyond the user’s bounded rationality. These findings could help improve users’ information literacy and optimise information systems.

This study aims to investigate the impact of bureaucratic culture on the formulation and content of digital transformation strategies in Swedish local governments.

This research uses a qualitative content analysis method to examine strategy documents from local governments in Sweden. The analysis is focused on identifying concepts related to the definition of digital transformation strategy, organizational culture and agility. Relevant themes and insights were extracted using concept-driven coding.

The research uncovered a significant influence of bureaucratic culture on the content of strategy documents, which manifests through a strong status quo bias. This bias leads to a cautious approach toward digital innovation, limiting strategies to incremental improvements and maintenance of existing processes.

The findings highlight the need for a nuanced understanding of how organizational culture affects digital transformation. The study suggests avenues for further research, particularly in exploring mechanisms to balance bureaucratic stability with digital agility.

The research proposes recommendations for policymakers and public sector managers, advocating for an approach incorporating cultural awareness to foster a more conducive environment for digital transformation within bureaucratic settings.

This study contributes to the field by revealing the nuanced role of bureaucratic culture in shaping digital transformation strategies within the public sector. It offers a unique insight into the Swedish context.

In Family Law Court decisions in Australia, following divorce, the female party is frequently disadvantaged financially in the long term. This paper provides a critical assessment of valuation evidence as a data source in research and discusses valuation accuracy, valuation variation and valuation bias, as well as the Australian family court system and the role of valuers as expert witnesses. In particular, valuation in family law, as it relates to gender inequality, is discussed. The study aims to determine whether the current system of valuation in the Family Law Courts disadvantages women. This paper was important to reveal information that stakeholders in family law cases use on a day-to-day basis.

A database of 658 cases was developed and analysed to examine the influence of valuations of the matrimonial home provided by both the male and female parties on the final decision of the court.

Findings showed that valuations from the female party had marginally more influence on the outcome. However, financial disadvantages for the female party persist despite this. This raises several questions for future research, regarding reasons for this persistent disadvantage.

Research limitations included a time-consuming process.

Further researchers can use the findings from this paper to further research.

Social implications include the ability of the research to impact on society. In this regard, it was the matrimonial home in relation to divorce proceedings.

The originality of this paper stems from the analysis of a database that was created from a large number of cases from Austlii database family law cases.