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This article aims to systematically review the literature published in recognized journals focused on cognitive heuristic-driven biases and their effect on investment management activities and market efficiency. It also includes some of the research work on the origins and foundations of behavioral finance, and how this has grown substantially to become an established and particular subject of study in its own right. The study also aims to provide future direction to the researchers working in this field.

For doing research synthesis, a systematic literature review (SLR) approach was applied considering research studies published within the time period, i.e. 1970–2021. This study attempted to accomplish a critical review of 176 studies out of 256 studies identified, which were published in reputable journals to synthesize the existing literature in the behavioral finance domain-related explicitly to cognitive heuristic-driven biases and their effect on investment management activities and market efficiency as well as on the origins and foundations of behavioral finance.

This review reveals that investors often use cognitive heuristics to reduce the risk of losses in uncertain situations, but that leads to errors in judgment; as a result, investors make irrational decisions, which may cause the market to overreact or underreact – in both situations, the market becomes inefficient. Overall, the literature demonstrates that there is currently no consensus on the usefulness of cognitive heuristics in the context of investment management activities and market efficiency. Therefore, a lack of consensus about this topic suggests that further studies may bring relevant contributions to the literature. Based on the gaps analysis, three major categories of gaps, namely theoretical and methodological gaps, and contextual gaps, are found, where research is needed.

The skillful understanding and knowledge of the cognitive heuristic-driven biases will help the investors, financial institutions and policymakers to overcome the adverse effect of these behavioral biases in the stock market. This article provides a detailed explanation of cognitive heuristic-driven biases and their influence on investment management activities and market efficiency, which could be very useful for finance practitioners, such as an investor who plays at the stock exchange, a portfolio manager, a financial strategist/advisor in an investment firm, a financial planner, an investment banker, a trader/broker at the stock exchange or a financial analyst. But most importantly, the term also includes all those persons who manage corporate entities and are responsible for making their financial management strategies.

Currently, no recent study exists, which reviews and evaluates the empirical research on cognitive heuristic-driven biases displayed by investors. The current study is original in discussing the role of cognitive heuristic-driven biases in investment management activities and market efficiency as well as the history and foundations of behavioral finance by means of research synthesis. This paper is useful to researchers, academicians, policymakers and those working in the area of behavioral finance in understanding the role that cognitive heuristic plays in investment management activities and market efficiency.

This paper aims to analyze the heuristics and cognitive biases described by behavioral finance in the investment decision-making process of Portugal’s housing market.

In a first step, the authors applied an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to assess the impact of heuristics and cognitive biases on investors’ decision-making. In a second step, the authors run a structural equation model (SEM) diagram path to assess if the sociodemographic characteristics of housing market investors determine the identified heuristics and if the heuristics condition the investors’ investment criteria.

Herd behavior and the heuristics of representativeness, availability and anchoring influence the housing market’s investors’ behavior in their decision-making process. Investors with above-average income show higher levels of overconfidence. Investors showing higher levels of overconfidence also tend to be more sensitive to the house price under analysis for investment. Women tend to show higher levels of the availability and anchoring heuristic. In turn, housing market investors showing higher levels of availability and anchoring heuristic tend to be more sensitive to the price and location of the house under analysis for investment.

The explained variance of the EFA is below 50%, and the root mean square of approximation of the SEM is above the threshold of 0.05. These indicators are evidence of the models’ fragility.

Governments and regulators can better prevent real estate bubbles if they monitor behavioral biases and heuristics of housing investors together with quantitative indicators. Realtors can profit from adapting their marketing strategy and commercial communication to investors of sociodemographic groups more prone to a specific type of heuristics.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that combines the contributions of behavioral finance with Portugal’s housing investment market and the first study connecting heuristics to investment criteria.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how stock characteristics influence investor trading behavior and psychological pitfalls.

This study employs the methods of Solt and Statman (1989) and Kumar (2009) to examine investor trading activities.

Good companies do not usually have good stocks, while lottery-type stocks show better price performance than other stocks. Due to the representativeness and affect heuristics, the stocks of good companies are frequently transacted, while the low-priced stocks are infrequently transacted. Moreover, investors may display the gambler’s fallacy in the trade of stocks of good companies and the overconfidence and self-attribution bias in the trade of lottery-type stocks.

Investors trading lottery-type stocks demonstrate greater maturity than those that trade stocks of good companies; however, psychological pitfalls still dominate investor trading behavior.

The representativeness heuristic of “stocks of good companies are good stocks” results in the inclusion of stocks of good companies in a portfolio and poorer price performance, whereas the inclusion of lottery-type stocks in a portfolio brings higher returns within a short period of time.

Compared to earlier studies that focussed on the price performance of stocks of good companies and investor trading behavior in relation to lottery-type stocks, this study aims to investigate the influence of stock characteristics on price performance, trading activities, and psychological pitfalls.

The finance literature is awash with papers bordering on the classical assumption that investors are rational in their decision-making, and hence, would always take decisions rationally given the right information, thus making the stock market efficient. This assumption has, however, been found to be at least inadequate given the fact that investors are complex psychological beings full of emotions. This paper aims to investigate the psychological factors that tend to influence the decisions of investors.

The study used a questionnaire to survey a total of 350 investors holding stocks of listed banks on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).

The study found the existence of various behavioural biases among the investors surveyed. The most dominant factor or bias found to be influencing investment decisions of respondents was herding with nearly 62% weight. Again, biases such as regret aversion and gambler’s fallacy were also found to strongly influence the decisions of investors, along with mental accounting, overconfidence and anchoring.

The presence of these behavioural biases, therefore suggests that investors do not always take rational decisions, and hence, making the stock market efficient and that as psychological beings, their investment decisions are impacted strongly by their psychology.

The study used a questionnaire to survey a total of 350 investors holding stocks of listed banks on the GSE with a special focus on overconfidence, anchoring, herding, gambler’s fallacy, mental accounting and regret aversion as the variables of interest, the first of its kind in Ghana.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a clear and generalizable conceptualization of project team momentum, as well as a detailed and engaging research agenda on this concept.

A literature review was conducted to achieve the study’s objectives. The review acknowledges the meanings that researchers in the field of sports have ascribed to the concept of momentum.

The paper develops a multidimensional (cognitive, affective and behavioral) conceptualization of project team momentum, as well as a conceptual framework that clearly distinguishes this construct from its antecedents and consequences.

The paper encourages researchers to adopt the proposed conceptualization of project team momentum and to investigate the questions proposed in the research agenda.

The paper develops a strong conceptual basis for a concept that is highly relevant to, but currently not well-understood in, the project management domain. The proposed conceptualization is likely to contribute to the development of a sound theory of project team dynamics and project success.

The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between the annual income earned by the investors and eight behavioural biases exhibited by the investors such as mental accounting, anchoring, gambler’s fallacy, availability, loss aversion, regret aversion, representativeness and overconfidence.

The relationship is derived based on a questionnaire survey conducted on 436 secondary equity investors residing in Chennai, India.

Analysis of variance test was performed on the normalised and non-normalised version of the biases divided in terms of the annual income earned by the investor. The test found that for the significant biases except the overconfidence bias, the investors with higher annual income were less prone to the biases when compared to investors with lower annual income. On the other hand, with respect to the overconfidence bias, the investors with higher annual income were prone to exhibit overconfidence bias when compared to the investors with lower annual income. Correlation analysis showed that the investors with high annual income were more likely to exhibit higher overconfidence bias but lower representativeness, loss aversion, availability and mental accounting biases.

A contribution in the financial and economic front which would benefit the financial advisors to now consider the income earned by the clients as an important factor while giving financial advice to the clients and while guiding them about the biases they are prone to exhibit.

Jim Collins' Good to Great is but one of many popular press books on management. In his book, Collins discusses the keys to success for today's corporations. Many managers flocked to bookstores to discover what they might be missing in making their organization great. This paper aims to use methodologies more commonly found in the finance literature to validate the results of Collins' study.

This paper uses methodologies more commonly found in finance literature (e.g. event study methodology, Fama‐French three‐factor model with momentum, buy‐and‐hold abnormal returns) to validate the results of Collins' study.

The results show that the Good to Great firms had unexceptional performance when compared to other benchmark lists of firms, on an ex‐ante or ex‐post basis.

From a management perspective, the advice that one might obtain from Good to Great should be carefully examined by managers before they implement it, only to find that great is not really so great.

The paper is original in its methodological design and is valuable to managers who are seeking advice for opportunities that enhance shareholder wealth.

The purpose of this paper is to identify whether heuristic and herding biases influence portfolio construction and performance in Greece. The current research determines the situation among investors in Greece, a country with several economic problems for the last decade.

A survey has been conducted covering a group of active private investors. The relationship between private investors' behavior and portfolio construction and performance was tested using a multiple regression.

The authors find that heuristic variable affects private investor's portfolio construction and performance satisfaction level positively. A robustness test on a second group, consisting of professional investors, reveals that heuristic and herding biases affect investment behavior when constructing a portfolio.

The authors recommend investors to select professional's investment portfolio tools in constructing investment portfolios and avoid excessive errors, which occur due to heuristic. The awareness and understanding of heuristic and herding could be helpful for professionals and decision-makers in financial institutions by improving their performance resulting in more efficient markets.

The main contribution of this paper lies in the fact that it is the first study on two major behavioral dimensions that affect the investor's portfolio construction and performance in Greece. The rationale of the current research is that the results are helpful for investors in order to take rational, reliable and profitable decisions.