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Judging bias is ironically an inherent risk in every competition, which might threaten the fairness and legitimacy of the competition. The patriotism effect represents one source of judging bias as the judge favors contestants who share the same sentiments, such as the nationalistic, racial, or cultural aspects. This study attempts to explore this type of judging bias in a university student competition. In addition, this study tries to expand the literature on judging bias by proposing the term universitarian bias as the judge is suspected to give a higher score to contestants from the same university.

The association rule of data mining is used to accomplish the objective of the study. To demonstrate the applicability of the method, the data set from the annual national university student competition in Indonesia is exploited.

The result strongly discovers that the universitarian bias is likely to be present. Some recommendations are also provided in order to minimize the bias that might happen again in the future.

As the implication of the presence of the universitarian bias, the committee should remove all the university features attributed to the participants. This endeavor is expected to minimize the universitarian bias that might happen.

This research is claimed to be the first attempt in implementing the data mining technique in the field of judging bias.

This paper synthesizes the extant research on the outcome effect in the accounting domain, focusing primarily on the context of performance evaluation. It reviews the current state of our knowledge about this phenomenon, including its underlying cognitive and motivational causes, the contexts in which the outcome effect is observed, the factors that influence its various manifestations, and ways in which undesirable outcome effects can be mitigated. It also considers various perspectives about the extent to which outcome effects represent undesirable judgmental bias, and whether this distinction is necessary to motivate research on this topic. The paper is intended to motivate and facilitate future research into the effects of outcome knowledge on judgment in the accounting context. Therefore, we also identify important unanswered questions and discuss opportunities for future research throughout the paper. These include additional consideration of instances in which the outcome effect is reflective of bias, how this bias can be effectively mitigated, ways in which outcome information influences judgment (regardless of whether this influence is considered normative), and how the underlying causes of the outcome effect operate singly and jointly to bring about the outcome effect. We also consider ways that future research can contribute to practice by determining how to encourage evaluators to retain and incorporate the relevant information conveyed by outcomes, while avoiding the inappropriate use of outcome information, and by enhancing external validity to increase the generalizability of experimental results to scenarios frequently encountered in practice.

The Scottish Government hope to pilot judge only rape trials to increase the woefully low rape conviction rates in Scotland. The reasoning is that by removing jurors, the court will be attenuating the role that rape myths and other cognitive and social biases have on conviction rates. However, a plethora of research from cognitive and social psychology, legal literature and decision-making science has shown that experts, including judges and other legal professionals, may be no less biased than laypeople. This paper aims to outline the research highlighting that experts may also be biased, why biases in judges can be elicited, and potential alternative recommendations (i.e. deselecting jurors who score highly on rape myths and providing training/education for jurors). Furthermore, piloting with real judges, in real trials, may not be best practice. Therefore, the authors recommend that any piloting is preceded by experimental research.

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Furthermore, piloting with real judges, in real trials, may not be best practice; therefore, the authors recommend that any piloting is preceded by experimental research.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first of its kind to directly compared the decision-making of jurors and judges within the current Scottish legal context.

This paper aims to investigate factors which may influence or bias judges’ decisions to exclude or admit the testimony of accounting expert witnesses, under the US judicial guidelines commonly known as the Daubert/Kuhmo standards. Accounting experts are increasingly providing expert testimony as a part of financial litigation support services.

Judges’ decisions, in which opposing council evoked a Daubert/Kuhmo challenge to the testimony provided by 130 professional accountants serving as expert witnesses, were analyzed. The period of study was 2010 through 2014. Based on prior research, three variables believed to potentially influence or bias judges to systematically exclude expert testimony were examined: gender, complexity and familiarity.

The results of binary logistic regression show that none of the variables has a significant relationship to the accounting expert witnesses’ probability of surviving a challenge to Daubert/Kuhmo standards. Findings suggest that judges are objective in evaluating the testimony provided by accounting experts under Daubert/Kuhmo guidelines and that they may be immune to biases based solely on gender, complexity and familiarity.

These results will be of interest to judges, lawyers and forensic accountants acting as expert witnesses.

Opinion polls show that contributions to judicial candidates create an appearance of corruption. This perception damages the institutional legitimacy of the courts. This chapter explores the relationship between integrity ratings of Illinois trial judges and campaign contributions. Specifically, it examines the Illinois State Bar Association judicial poll integrity scores of 253 elected judges seated in 101 Illinois counties during 1994–2012. Regression analysis reveals that judicial candidates’ integrity scores declined as (a) the amount of attorney contributions increased; (b) the number of reported attorney contributors enlarged; and (c) the number of large attorney contributors grew. This chapter also discusses the efficacy and limitations of four policies meant to diminish the appearance of corruption: recusal and disqualification rules; anonymous contributions; public financing; and the elimination of the election of judges. Although a radical solution, the policy of abolishing judicial elections is more likely to overcome the appearance of corruption than the other reforms.

Purpose – To provide strategic management scholars, particularly graduate students and new faculty members, a novel approach, the lens model, to investigate emerging economies phenomena.

Design/methodology/approach – Based on a review of the strategic management literature and a search of the strategy databases and journals, I propose the lens model approach and discuss its origins, development, and designs since its introduction. It has been used extensively in such fields as cognitive psychology, social psychology, medicine, agriculture, human resources management, and organizational behavior. Besides the wide application, it has relevance for strategic management research.

Findings – An illustrative study and a summary of the approach from a previous study in one prominent journal are also provided as guides. I conclude by providing recommendations on what to consider in using the approach for the study of emerging economies.

Research limitations/implications – In addition to the strengths of the approach, its weaknesses are also discussed. Suggestions on maximizing the potential of the approach are also discussed.

Practical implications – The approach is an invaluable source particularly for graduate students of strategy who often are unfamiliar with microlevel approaches. They can use it to supplement approaches for strategic management.

Originality/value – To my knowledge, this chapter is the first to discuss the lens model approach in the strategic management literature. In that regard, it fills a gap in the research methodology literature. It can therefore help graduate students improve their careers.

Heuristics are used in the judgment and decision-making process of bank employees; however, discussions and research on the type or range of judgmental heuristics are very difficult to find throughout the world. In light of this, the purpose of this paper is to empirically analyze what types of heuristics are used in bank employees’ judgment and decision-making processes and the extent to which those types of heuristics prevent rational decision making due to the systematic biases they generate. In particular, this study aims to conduct empirical research based on various scenarios related to the banking industry.

To examine the heuristics in decision-making circumstances and the level of subsequent biases, the present study narrowed the scope of research to the three main types of heuristics introduced by Tversky and Kahneman (1974), namely, representativeness heuristics, availability heuristics and anchoring and adjustment heuristics. To analyze the bank employees’ decision making, this study specifically investigated the level of decision-making heuristics and the level of bias by focusing on these three types of heuristics. This study targeted bank employees who either sell financial products or are engaged in customer service work at a real/physical bank.

For representativeness heuristics, this study found bank employees’ judgment of probability was influenced by biases, such as insensitivity to prior probability, insensitivity to sample size, misconception of chance and insensitivity to predictability. Regarding availability heuristics, it found that bank employees judge the probability of events based on the ease of recalling an event instead of the actual frequency of the event, and so they fall prey to systematic biases. Finally, regarding anchoring and adjustment heuristics, this study found that employees fall prey to judgment biases as they judge the probability of conjunctive events and disjunctive events based on anchoring and insufficient adjustment.

Although people who are well-trained in statistics can avoid rudimentary errors, they fall prey to biased judgment at a similar level to those who are not properly trained in statistics when it comes to more complicated and ambiguous issues. It clearly indicates that it is risky to determine that financial experts would be more rational than the general public in making various judgments required in the policy-making process. To conclude, it is imperative to recognize the existence of heuristics-based systematic biases in the judgment and decision-making process and, furthermore, to reinforce the education and training system to improve bank employees’ rational choice and judgment ability.

This study examines unexplored horizontal accountability types between public, private and third sector actors within a hybrid organization. The case organization was applying a novel alliance model to generate service paths for heterogeneous clientele consuming cultural, educational, health and social services. It was first to do so in Finland.

This research is on a case study that used documents and interviews to examine the design of the horizontal accountability. The descriptive analysis focused on identifying what type of formal accountability system was designed (i.e. who is the account holder, and who is accountable and for what and why).

An imbalanced accountability system was identified because accountability obligations were unevenly distributed between public, private and third sector actors. The private sector was the most accountable for performance, and the third sector (i.e. voluntary sector) was the least accountable. As account holders, the public, private and third sector actors were judging their conduct as account providers. This created a biased horizontal accountability system. The hybrid's accountability system was dynamic because the contracts made to establish the hybrid included opportunities to change horizontal accountability if future changes to the external environment affect too drastically the potential to achieve the hybrid's goals.

Three new concepts are proposed for studying dysfunctional accountability systems: dynamic, biased and horizontally imbalanced accountability.

The study explored users' tendency of confirmation bias when processing congenial vs. uncongenial electronic-word-of-mouth (e-WOM) about mystery fictions, a hedonic product category with strong experience and hedonic characters.

A two-stage judgment approach was employed where the participants were asked to judge a set of mystery novels twice: one before, and another after they were exposed to positive and negative e-WOM. The first-stage judgment established two favored and two disfavored titles by each participant. They were then asked to read six consumer reviews – three positive and three negative – for each of the four titles. The procedures created four review evaluation situations: two congruent and two incongruent, which allowed the authors to assess the participants' perceptions of congenial and uncongenial reviews and their rating adjustments of the titles. Participants' involvement in mystery novels was also measured to test its moderating effect on confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias in the evaluation of e-WOM was observed and reinforced by the user's involvement in the genre. Congenial reviews were perceived to be significantly more credible, better reflect the intrinsic value of a title and less subjectively motivated than uncongenial reviews. Furthermore, after exposure to equal amount of positive and negative e-WOM, an asymmetrical adjustment of final rating of the titles was observed. A significantly greater downward adjustment was observed for disfavored than favored titles. Stronger positive confirmation bias was also observed in the evaluation of WOM.

Previous studies on e-WOM have shown conflicting findings on the relative efficacy of positive vs. negative reviews. By introducing the factor of prior attitudes, the study demonstrated that whether WOM is consistent with an individual's prior attitude, rather than the valences of WOM in itself, determines its persuasiveness. Thus, it established the confirmation bias in users' processing of e-WOM. The finding highlights the importance for marketers to establish a positive initial impression, which, as the findings demonstrated, helps alleviate the damages caused by negative WOM.

This is the first study that has ever attempted to study the effect of confirmation bias during the users' processing of e-WOM in an experimental setting. By having the participants judge the books before and after exposure to congenial and uncongenial e-WOM, the authors were able to establish the link between the users' prior commitment to a book and their subsequent judgment of both the titles and the e-WOM.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2020-0026

It is well known that information behaviour can be biased in countless ways and that users of web search engines have difficulty in assessing the credibility of results. Yet, little is known about how search engine result page (SERP) listings are used to judge credibility and in which if any way such judgements are biased. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Two studies are presented. The first collects data by means of a controlled, web-based user study (N=105). Studying judgements for three controversial topics, the paper examines the extent to which users agree on credibility, the extent to which judgements relate to those applied by objective assessors and to what extent judgements can be predicted by the users’ position on and prior knowledge of the topic. A second, qualitative study (N=9) utilises the same setup; however, transcribed think-aloud protocols provide an understanding of the cues participants use to estimate credibility.

The first study reveals that users are very uncertain when assessing credibility and their impressions often diverge from objective judges who have fact checked the sources. Little evidence is found indicating that judgements are biased by prior beliefs or knowledge, but differences are observed in the accuracy of judgements across topics. Qualitatively analysing think-aloud transcripts from participants think-aloud reveals ten categories of cues, which participants used to determine the credibility of results. Despite short listings, participants utilised diverse cues for the same listings. Even when the same cues were identified and utilised, different participants often interpreted these differently. Example transcripts show how participants reach varying conclusions, illustrate common mistakes made and highlight problems with existing SERP listings.

This study offers a novel perspective on how the credibility of SERP listings is interpreted when assessing search results. Especially striking is how the same short snippets provide diverse informational cues and how these cues can be interpreted differently depending on the user and his or her background. This finding is significant in terms of how search engine results should be presented and opens up the new challenge of discovering technological solutions, which allow users to better judge the credibility of information sources on the web.