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This study aims to focus on the analysis of the internal mechanism of farmers’ ecological cognition and the behaviour of Grain for Green Project (GGP), and the further relationship between ecological cognition and ecological aspiration, proposing climate change strategies and management from the perspective of farmers.

Theory of planned behaviour and social exchange theory were used to construct a theoretical framework and an ecological cognition under the influence of external factors, the aspiration and the behaviour of GGP, using ecological fragile areas in Bazhou and Changji, Xinjiang of 618 peasant households’ survey data. The structural equation model and Heckman two-step model were applied to analyse the relationship between ecological cognition and ecological aspiration of farmers, the impact of peasant households’ ecological cognition and aspiration to the behaviour of GGP and the influence factors of GGP behaviour.

This research’s results show that the three characterizations of ecological cognitive variables, attitude towards the behaviour (AB), subjective norms (SN) and perceived behaviour control (PBC), have significant positive impact on farmers’ GGP ecological aspiration. The comprehensive impact path coefficients of ecological cognition are PBC (0.498) > SN (0.223) > AB (0.177). Also, income change is a moderating variable, which has a significant moderating effect on the influence of AB and SN on ecological aspiration. Further, farmers’ ecological cognition has an influence on the behaviour of GGP, and the change of farmers’ income has a significant positive effect on farmers’ choice of returning farmland to forests.

The ecological protection policy suggestions and countermeasures can be drawn from the research conclusions, adapted to China’s ecologically fragile regions and even similar regions in the world to response the climate change.

Combining the theory of planning behaviour and social exchange, this paper empirically analyses the path of farmers’ ecological cognition and ecological aspiration, as well as the influencing factors.

Are there smart ways to find heuristics? What are the common principles behind heuristics? We propose an integrative definition of heuristics, based on insights that apply to all heuristics, and put forward meta-heuristics for discovering heuristics.

We employ Herbert Simon’s metaphor that human behavior is shaped by the scissors of the mind and its environment. We present heuristics from different domains and multiple sources, including scholarly literature, practitioner-reports and ancient texts.

Heuristics are simple, actionable principles for behavior that can take different forms, including that of computational algorithms and qualitative rules-of-thumb, cast into proverbs or folk-wisdom. We introduce heuristics for tasks ranging from management to writing and warfare. We report 13 meta-heuristics for discovering new heuristics and identify four principles behind them and all other heuristics: Those principles concern the (1) plurality, (2) correspondence, (3) connectedness of heuristics and environments and (4) the interdisciplinary nature of the scissors’ blades with respect to research fields and methodology.

We take a fresh look at Simon’s scissors-metaphor and employ it to derive an integrative perspective that includes a study of meta-heuristics.

This paper examines the relationship between marketing automation emergence and the marketers' use of heuristics in their decision-making processes. Heuristics play a role for the integration of human decision-making models and automation in augmentation processes, particularly in marketing where automation is widespread.

This study analyzes qualitative data about the impact of marketing automation on the scope of heuristics in decision-making models, and it is based on evidence collected from interviews with twenty-two experienced marketers.

Marketers make extensive use of heuristics to manage their tasks. While the adoption of new automatic marketing tools modify the task environment and field of use of traditional decision-making models, the adoption of heuristics rules with a different scope is essential to defining inputs, interpreting/evaluating outputs and control the marketing automation system.

The paper makes a contribution to research on the relationship between marketing automation and decision-making models. In particular, it proposes the results of in-depth interviews with senior decision makers to assess the impact of marketing automation on the scope of heuristics as decision-making models adopted by marketers.

Climatic changes caused by greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions are an urgent challenge for all regions around the globe while the livestock sector is an important source of GHGs emissions. The adoption of low-carbon manure treatment technology (LMTT) by farmers is emerging as an effective remedy to neutralize the carbon emissions of livestock. This paper aims to incorporate environmental literacy and social norms into the analysis framework, with the aim of exploring the impact of environmental literacy and social norms on farmers' adoption of LMTT and finally reduce GHGs emission and climate effects.

This research survey is conducted in Hebei, Henan and Hubei provinces of China. First, this research measures environmental literacy from environmental cognition, skill and responsibility and describes social norms from descriptive and imperative social norms. Second, this paper explores the influence of environmental literacy and social norms on the adoption of LMTT by farmers using the logit model. Third, Logit model's instrumental approach, i.e. IV-Logit, is applied to address the simultaneous biases between environmental skill and farmers’ LMTT adoption. Finally, the research used a moderating model to analyze feasible paths of environmental literacy and social norms that impact the adoption of LMTT by farmers.

The results showed that environmental literacy and social norms significantly and positively affect the adoption of LMTT by farmers. In particular, the effects of environmental literacy on the adoption of LMTT by farmers are mainly contributed by environmental skill and responsibility. The enhancement of social norms on the adoption of LMTT by farmers is mainly due to the leading role of imperative social norms. Meanwhile, if the endogeneity caused by the reverse effect between environmental skill and farmers’ LMTT adoption is dealt with, the role of environmental skill will be weakened. Additionally, LMTT technologies consist of energy and resource technologies. Compared to energy technology, social norms have a more substantial moderating effect on environmental literacy, affecting the adoption of farmer resource technology.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, a novel attempt is made to examine the effects of environmental literacy and social norms on the adoption of LMTT by farmers, with the objective of identifying more effective factors to increase the intensity of LMTT adoption by farmers.

New digital technologies are reshaping the business landscape and accounting work. This paper aims to investigate how incorporating more data and new data analytics (DA) tools impacts the role and use of judgment in financial due diligence (FDD).

The paper reports findings from a field study at a Big Four accounting firm in Sweden (“DealCo”). The primary data includes semi-structured interviews, observations and other meetings. Theoretically, it draws on Dewey’s The Logic of Judgments of Practise and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry and distinguishes between theoretical (what is probably true) and practical judgment (what to do).

In DealCo’s FDD practice, using more data and new DA tools meant that the realm of possibility had expanded significantly. To manage the newfound abundance and to use DA effectively, DealCo’s advisors invoked practical and theoretical judgments in different stages and areas of the data-driven FDD. The paper identifies four critical uses of judgment: Setting priorities and exercising restraint (practical judgment) and forming hypotheses and doing sense checks (theoretical judgment). In these capacities, practical judgment and theoretical judgment were essential in transforming raw data into actionable insights and, in effect, an indeterminate situation into a determinate one.

The study foregrounds the practical dimension of knowledge production for decision-making and contributes to a better understanding of the role, use and importance of accounting professionals’ judgment in a data-driven world.

This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework on how the representativeness heuristic operates in the decision-making process. Specifically, the authors unbundle representativeness into its building blocks: search rule, stopping rule and decision rule. Furthermore, the focus is placed on how individual-level cognitive and behavioral factors, namely experience, intuition and overconfidence, affect the functioning of this heuristic.

From a theoretical standpoint, the authors build on dual-process theories and on the adaptive toolbox view from the “fast and frugal heuristics” perspective to develop an integrative conceptual framework that uncovers the mechanisms underlying the representativeness heuristic.

The authors’ conceptualization suggests that the search rule used in representativeness is based on analogical mapping from previous experience, the stopping rule is the representational stability of the analogs and the decision rule is the choice of the alternative upon which there is a convergence of representations and that exceeds the decision maker's aspiration level. In this framework, intuition may help the decision maker to cross-map potentially competing analogies, while overconfidence affects the search time and costs and alters both the stopping and the decision rule.

The authors develop a conceptual framework on representativeness, as one of the most common, though still poorly investigated, heuristics. The model offers a nuanced perspective that explores the cognitive and behavioral mechanisms that shape the use of representativeness in decision-making. The authors also discuss the theoretical implications of their model and outline future research avenues that may further contribute to enriching their understanding of decision-making processes.

Unicorn companies, such as Facebook, Uber, and Airbnb, significantly impact our economies. This happens although they had a dramatic initial start – at least in terms of financial performance – that would have let any other “conventional” business close. In other words, Unicorns challenge the start-ups’ problems traditionally associated with early failure (liability of newness). This paper aims to understand what helps Unicorn firms initially survive despite huge losses.

By adopting a behavioral lens, this historical case study article focuses on key strategic decisions regarding the famous social media Unicorn Snapchat from 2011 to 2022. The case combines secondary data and a thematic analysis of Snapchat founders’ and investors’ interviews/comments to identify the behavioral antecedents leading to Snapchat’s honeymoon.

Snapchat network effect triggered cognitive biases of Snapchat founders’ and investors’ decisions, leading them to provide initial assets (i.e. beliefs/goodwill, trust, financial resources and psychological commitment) to the nascent Unicorn. Therefore, the network effect and biases resulted in significant antecedents for Snapchat’s honeymoon.

The authors propose a general, theoretical framework advancing the possible impact of biases on Unicorns’ initial survival. The authors argue that some biases of the Unicorns’ founders and investors can positively support a honeymoon period for these new ventures. This is one of the first case studies drawing on a behavioral approach in general and on biases in particular to investigate the liability of newness in the Unicorns’ context.

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.