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Employing expatriates who share an ethnicity with host country employees (HCEs) is a widespread expatriate selection strategy. However, little research has compared how expatriates and HCEs perceive this shared ethnicity. Drawing upon an identity perspective, we propose HCEs' ethnic identity confirmation, the level of agreement between how an HCE views the importance of his/her own ethnic identity and how expatriates view the importance of the HCE's ethnic identity, affects HCEs' attitudes toward ethnically similar expatriates. Results of two experiments show that HCEs' ethnic identity confirmation is related to HCEs' perception of expatriates' trustworthiness and knowledge-sharing intention.

Prior research provides evidence that, when searching for information to resolve client issues, tax professionals’ search processes are subject to confirmation bias. That is, their search tends to focus on information consistent with client preferences at the expense of attending to information that is contrary to client preferences. Although tax professionals are client advocates, such confirmation bias in information search is problematic because it may lead to systematic upward bias in assessments of the evidential support for client-preferred positions and to overly aggressive recommendations. In addition to their clients, tax staff professionals are also accountable to their supervisors. Therefore, this study investigates whether staff professionals’ confirmation bias in information search is influenced by their supervisor's initial belief concerning whether the client-preferred tax position can or cannot be supported. We predict that confirmation bias will be stronger when the supervisor's belief is consistent with client preference than when it is not. We report the results of an experiment in which 83 experienced tax professionals performed a simulated research task. We manipulated the client's preferred tax position and the supervisor's initial belief in a 2×2 between-subjects design. Our results generally support our hypotheses in a case in which the client recognized a loss. However, when the client recognized a gain, the results do not support our hypotheses. We also find that measures of confirmation bias are positively associated with subordinates’ assessments of the evidential support for the client-preferred position and that evidential support assessments are positively associated with the strength of recommendations for the client-preferred position.

Seven past field-experimental attempts to produce Pygmalion effects by training managers yielded meager results (Eden et al, 2000). The present effort bolstered the Pygmalion approach with special emphasis on means efficacy, defined as belief in the utility of the tools available for performing a job. Six randomly assigned anti-aircraft gunnery instructors received a one-day Pygmalion workshop with special emphasis on self-efficacy and means efficacy before beginning instruction in a new round of a course; eight control instructors received an interpersonal communication workshop. The trainees of the experimental instructors reported higher self-efficacy, means efficacy, and motivation, and obtained higher scores on written examinations and on performance tests than did the trainees of the control instructors. This is the first true-experimental confirmation of the effectiveness of Pygmalion training among instructors of adults and the first replication of the means-efficacy findings.

While Big Data offer marketing managers information that is high in volume, variety, velocity, and veracity (the 4Vs), these features wouldn’t necessarily improve their decision-making. Managers would still be vulnerable to confirmation bias, control illusions, communication problems, and confidence issues (the 4Cs). The authors argue that traditional remedies for such biases don’t go far enough and propose a lean start-up approach to data-based learning in marketing management. Specifically, they focus on the marketing analytics component of Big Data and how adaptations of the lean start-up methodology can be used in some combination with such analytics to help marketing managers improve their decision-making and innovation process. Beyond the often discussed technical obstacles and operational costs associated with handling Big Data, this chapter contributes by analyzing the various learning and decision-making problems that can emerge once the 4Vs of Big Data have materialized.

This study documents that an outcome-favorable bias is greater when the quantity of information describing a balanced tax-decision context is substantially increased. Second, the study demonstrates that an outcome-favorable bias can be offset by the use of principles-based ethical standards. Specifically, we examine the effect of AICPA Code of Conduct Section 54 for integrity and Rule 102-6 for advocacy. Students volunteered to participate in this study examining the manner in which accounting novices initially process principles-based standards. Prior studies using student subjects in an audit setting have found that principles-based standards were effective only when students had high levels of moral reasoning (Herron & Gilbertson, 2004), and rules-based technical standards had no impact on student subjects when making financial adjustments (Pflugrath, Martinov-Bennie, & Chen, 2007). If professional standards increasingly rely on principles-based standards, then understanding the impact of such standards on future entrants into the profession would provide guidance in the creation and implementation of future standards, as well as assist educators in the development of accounting curricula. We extend the pattern of past research to a tax setting and show that tax-saving recommendations are a function of the presence of a professional standard and the level of contextual detail.

This study uses an eye-tracking device to examine the effects of dissenting opinion on information search style and decision quality, using insights from dual-process theory. When evaluating strategic outcomes, managers not exposed to a dissenting opinion employ directed information search using System 1 (heuristic, automatic cognitive processing), leading to low-quality decisions. Providing a dissenting opinion causes managers to use System 2 (sequential information search characterized by deliberate, slow, and effortful cognitive processing), leading to higher-quality decisions. This study provides useful insights into the cognitive processes underlying managers' judgments, and the factors that influence their decisions. We conclude by discussing the critical role of dissent in business practices, and explain how dissent affects people's System 2 cognitive processes.

Mergers & acquisitions (M&A) are an important element of any company's growth plan. However, the actual performance of most M&A activity fails to live up to the expectations of the acquirers. The psychological biases that affect decision-making have been posited as a source of this disappointing performance. The broad strokes in which these biases have been offered up as explanation for M&A failure don't offer much insight into the specific causes, and therefore the actions business leaders can take to mitigate their impact. We review a 4-step M&A process, identify the different biases that affect the different stages, and then offer practical debiasing techniques targeted at that particular stage of the decision-making process. This targeted debiasing can help business leaders find practical solutions to this vexing problem. Finally, we review two biases that motivate decision makers to avoid pursuing M&A deals at all – to the detriment of achieving their growth targets.

This essay is a review of the recent literature on the methodology of economics, with a focus on three broad trends that have defined the core lines of research within the discipline during the last two decades. These trends are: (a) the philosophical analysis of economic modelling and economic explanation; (b) the epistemology of causal inference, evidence diversity and evidence-based policy and (c) the investigation of the methodological underpinnings and public policy implications of behavioural economics. The final output is inevitably not exhaustive, yet it aims at offering a fair taste of some of the most representative questions in the field on which many philosophers, methodologists and social scientists have recently been placing a great deal of intellectual effort. The topics and references compiled in this review should serve at least as safe introductions to some of the central research questions in the philosophy and methodology of economics.

Culture is a central concept broadly studied in social anthropology and sociology. It has been gaining increasing attention in economics, appearing in research on labor market discrimination, identity, gender, and social preferences. Most experimental economics research on culture studies cross-national or cross-ethnic differences in economic behavior. In contrast, we explain laboratory behavior using two cultural dimensions adopted from a prominent general cultural framework in contemporary social anthropology: group commitment and grid control. Groupness measures the extent to which individual identity is incorporated into group or collective identity; gridness measures the extent to which social and political prescriptions intrinsically influence individual behavior. Grid-group characteristics are measured for each individual using selected items from the World Values Survey. We hypothesize that these attributes allow us to systematically predict behavior in a way that discriminates among multiple forms of social preferences using a simple, parsimonious deductive model. The theoretical predictions are further tested in the economics laboratory by applying them to the dictator, ultimatum, and trust games. We find that these predictions are confirmed overall for most experimental games, although the strength of empirical support varies across games. We conclude that grid-group cultural theory is a viable predictor of people’s economic behavior, then discuss potential limitations of the current approach and ways to improve it.

The introductory chapter includes how to design-in good practices in theory, data collection procedures, analysis, and interpretations to avoid these bad practices. Given that bad practices in research are ingrained in the career training of scholars in sub-disciplines of business/management (e.g., through reading articles exhibiting bad practices usually without discussions of the severe weaknesses in these studies and by research courses stressing the use of regression analysis and structural equation modeling), this editorial is likely to have little impact. However, scholars and executives supporting good practices should not lose hope. The relevant literature includes a few brilliant contributions that can serve as beacons for eliminating the current pervasive bad practices and for performing highly competent research.