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Organizations are investing their resources to identify effective leaders; however, the most commonly utilized assessments of leadership potential do not cover the social cognitions of individuals. Trait assessments, which are explicit in nature, also have other problems, including faking and socially desirable responding. In this chapter, we highlight the importance of leaders' implicit reasoning processes, with a particular focus on cognitive biases, in an attempt to understand how destructive leaders frame the world, situations and people and how they justify their choice of behaviours and decisions. Empirical evidence in the literature supports the valid use of implicit reasoning measurements in organizational contexts. Thus, we first summarize and list the cognitive biases of destructive leaders as identified in the literature. We then turn our focus on Machiavellian leaders as they have been associated with destructive leadership. We present the most common six cognitive biases and justification mechanisms of Machiavellian leaders based on our qualitative analysis of interview responses from 72 employees. We aim to encourage researchers and practitioners to make use of the literature on implicit reasoning and to further contribute to developing measures assessing such implicit reasoning processes.

Introduction – Markowitz (1952) argues that individuals act rationally in their financial decisions. In contrast, Kahneman and Tversky (1979) claim that the psychological characteristics of people significantly affect financial decisions. In making these decisions, factors such as age, gender, and educational status may have an impact.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to determine whether financial literacy has an impact on individuals’ cognitive biases related to financial investments.

Methodology – A sample of 444 individuals were surveyed.

Findings – In the results of study (1) it was determined that financial literacy leads to differences in cognitive biases; and (2) cognitive biases of individuals who do not receive finance education are different from individuals who receive finance education and professionals in the business world. The findings indicate that the increase in the level of financial literacy of individuals will reduce the cognitive biases and heuristics, and therefore will have a positive effect on the investor behavior in financial markets.

Venture capital is a critical source of funding and development of new ventures. The investment decision of venture capitalists (VCs) is a multi-stage assessment process where the entrepreneurs’ characteristics are the most important criteria to determine the decision to accept or to reject the proposal at the screening stage. At this stage, the decision-making of VCs is influenced by their subjective characteristics and their interactions with the entrepreneurs who share the same characteristics as theirs. How do the entrepreneurial experiences of both VCs and entrepreneurs interact and bias the evaluation? Several studies have tried to provide an answer to this still pending question. Research concurs in that entrepreneurial experience drives primarily the screening decisions of VCs. Yet, if many studies have shown that VCs are prone to cognitive biases in their evaluations, research focusing on the relationship between of those biases and entrepreneurial experience in the context of investment decision is scarce. VCs’ cognitive biases have been linked to the subjective characteristics of VCs. Most precisely, many studies have shown that a common bias among investors is the similarity-attraction bias such that VCs’ evaluations improve when VCs and entrepreneurs share the same characteristics. As a result, it is likely that entrepreneurial experience plays a significant role in explaining biases in investment decisions. Overall, research points out the importance of entrepreneurial experience of both VCs and entrepreneurs, their interactions and the cognitive biases shaped by their respective experiences in explaining the investment decisions of VCs at the screening stage.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to conduct a critical literature review that examines the origins and development of research on service robots in organizations, as well as the key emotional and cognitive issues between service employees, customers, and robots. This review provides a foundation for future research that leverages the emotional connection between service robots and humans.

Design/Methodology/Approach – A critical literature review that examines robotics, artificial intelligence, emotions, approach/avoid behavior, and cognitive biases is conducted.

Findings – This research provides six key themes that emerge from the current state of research in the field of service robotics with 14 accompanying research questions forming the basis of a research agenda. The themes presented are as follows: Theme 1: Employees have a forgotten “dual role”; Theme 2: The influence of groups is neglected; Theme 3: Opposing emotions lead to uncertain outcomes; Theme 4: We know how robots influence engagement, but not experience; Theme 5: Trust is necessary but poorly understood; and Theme 6: Bias is contagious: if the human mind is irrational…so too are robot minds.

Practical Implications – Practically, this research provides guidance for researchers and practitioners alike regarding the current state of research, gaps, and future directions. Importantly for practitioners, it sheds light on themes in the use of AI and robotics in services, highlighting opportunities to consider the dual role of the employee, examines how incorporating a service robot influences all levels of the organization, addresses motivational conflicts for employees and customers, explores how service robots influence the whole customer experience and how trust is formed, and how we are (often inadvertently) creating biased robots.

This chapter enters the debate of knowing if the financial regulations should be overhauled in the continuity of behavioural finance developments. The lack of precision in the behavioural finance conclusions could lead to misleading new financial regulations adoption. Furthermore, through an analysis of the literature, we show that behavioural finance hypothesis building converges to the neoclassical one's, which contradicts the idea to overhaul financial regulations. We also highlight the fact that universal heuristics and biases contribute to the financial regulations revision proposal. Finally, we analyse some of the propositions put forward by advocates of behavioural finance and the limits thereof.

Decision-making has long been recognized as being at the core of organizational life. Yet, the cognitive mechanisms by which managers make decisions represent a critical field of exploration. In this context, business models (BMs) are cognitive representations of organizational architectures that managers use to orient their firms in the business environment. While BMs – as managerial schemas – have been extensively studied for their beneficial applications at the strategic level, scholarly attention has rarely focused on their dark side. In this chapter, we point out that BM thinking – that focuses excessively on established schemas – might narrow managerial cognition in the process of fine-tuning the current BM; in the process, opportunities for more radical BM innovation can be overlooked. We systematize March and Simon’s contribution on managerial cognition into a more comprehensive conceptual framework by integrating the perspectives of Kahneman, Baron, and Gollwitzer. The result is an epistemologically coherent framework for managerial cognition and decision-making that focuses on how managers can overcome cognitive biases that derive from a reliance on established BMs as schemas. We close this chapter with directions for further research.

The aim of this paper is to create the nexus between political culture, citizens' perception of the political system and democratic order. In academic literature, one of the most important determinants of the democratic order is considered the cultural dimension. Beyond the political institutions and economic indicators, democracy is based on historical heritage, cultural patterns, political attitudes and behaviours. In correlation with all these premises, this article aims to (1) identify associations between social values and political participation; (2) estimate the impact of the political participation in creating premises for tolerance and democracy and (3) observe the relation between political beliefs, ideological position and political participation. Data are collected from secondary sources as World Values Survey, Wave 6. We use as research method the comprehensive case study for post-communist Romania. Empirical results demonstrate weak statistical correlations between personal values and active membership in political and civic associations (r = −0.150, p < 0.001). Traditional dimension of the Romanian post-communist society could be observed in three main variables which reflect personal values and preferences: family, work and religion. Low rates of tolerance are related with the inactivity in the social or political sphere, generating a syndrome of political apathy and alienation. In correlation with personal values, social implication and tolerance we have emphasize the respondents' cognitive bias regarding the meaning and directions of the democratic order.