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The purpose of this paper is to determine the value of I‐Ching (also called Book of Changes), the ancient Chinese book of wisdom, which has been used for thousands of years to help people make decisions in daily life. Recently, eastern and western scholars have begun discussing how to apply the wisdom of I‐Ching to the field of business administration, particularly decision‐making practices.

A content analysis method was adopted to uncover possible modern management decision‐making constructs. The single words approach did not find frequently appearing words that integrated decision‐making constructs in the context of I‐Ching. Further uncovering I‐Ching's administrative decision‐making approach, the managerial decision‐making model of I‐Ching is explained, including the premises, the decision contingencies, and the decision process.

By using an academic comparative analysis method, as it applies to managerial decision making, I‐Ching's early management decision‐making model is subsequently compared with western management decision models, which include rational decision making, bounded‐rationality decision making, intuitive decision making, implicit favorite decision making, and garbage‐can decision making.

The majority of scholars that study I‐Ching focus on “practice divination” research, paying attention to the interpretation or critique of the text only. Unfortunately, related literature based upon a social science research foundation is limited.

The value of I‐Ching was determined to lie in allowing flexibility in the decision‐making process.

This study aims to answer the following research question: “How do meaningful coincidences influence management decisions?” This question has gained relevance mainly because of the increasing attention of scholars in explaining the irrational pressures that shape management decisions, which should be inevitably taken into account to discover the causative factors of firms’ performances.

A multiparadigm approach to theory building has been adopted, known as “metatriangulation.” This study consisted of exploring the interplay between the synchronicity concept of Jung and cognitive studies. As a result, this work proposes a conceptual framework that refers to both sensemaking and cognitive decision-making literature.

The framework proposes that the perceived certainty (or not) about the potential outcome for the well-being, coming from the occurrence of meaningful coincidences, elicits a set of positive (or negative) affective states. These states activate a series of cognitive errors that drive the assignment of a symbolic content to the coincidences, bringing different risk-oriented management decisions.

The provided model is purely conceptual and based on the current pool of knowledge available. As much as empirical evidence will be produced, this model may need revision. This framework proposes the interpretation of meaningful coincidences not only as the output of a number of information processing biases, but also as inputs, through the elicited affect heuristic, for the occurrence of other cognitive errors that drive management decisions.

The explained influence of irrational forces on management decisions, also considering luck and chance, can be fruitful to avoid these behaviors or to intentionally adopt them in selected cases, e.g. when looking for attractive unexploited opportunities within markets.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first work that attempts to unveil the impact of meaningful coincidences and, more in general, of irrational forces on management decisions. Moreover, the provided framework explains how superstitious events are sometimes looked for to guide decision-making.

The purpose of this paper is to address the research-practice gap in management and advocate the need for an independent organization, called the evidence-based management (EBMgt) collaboration to facilitate generation and dissemination of knowledge that is rigorous, relevant, and actionable.

The authors use a theory-building approach to collaboration. They identify existing challenges in the research-practice gap literature and argue that EBMgt offers the most viable alternative to narrow this gap. They offer a theory of collaboration with supporting propositions that engages the generators, disseminators, and users of management knowledge in an ongoing sustainable collaboration toward EBMgt.

The authors envision evidence at the center of the EBMgt collaboration. They offer a process model of EBMgt incorporating a collaboration that ensures the fusion of rigor, relevance, and actionability of management knowledge toward the production of strong evidence that is of value to a decision maker. They suggest that the collaboration generate evidence in the form of a systematic review (SR) using a standard template and make it available online to management decision makers around the world in real time. They outline the parameters of the SR and offer details on the design of the Template.

The theory of collaboration brings together various competing ideas and recommendations made over the past few decades to close the research-practice gap in management. The theory can be used as a guideline to establish and maintain the operation of an EBMgt collaboration.

The authors offer details on the format and content of a standardized SR along with a template to execute it. They believe it would appeal to a practicing manager to know the state-of-the-art knowledge that applies to a decision that he or she is about to make in real time.

The work provides a theoretical platform for the idea of EBMgt collaboration that was not available before. The authors add value to the research-practice gap literature by addressing critical concerns including the identification of relevant research questions, evaluating and grading evidence, fostering communication between researchers and practitioners, and translating research to practicing managers. The integration of research and organizational knowledge in the form of an SR that provides decision support to a practicing manager is of significant value to the profession. The conceptualization of the collaboration, not as a research method but as a separate social system that links key management knowledge stakeholders together adds originality to collaboration research.

Managers are confronted with increasing information overload and growing pressure for effective and efficient decision making. The visualisation of data represents a way to overcome this dilemma and to improve management decision quality. The purpose of this paper is to transfer insights from visualisation research to the managerial accounting context and clarify the impact of visualisation on management accounting reports and decision making. The authors deduce implications for behavioural management accounting research, teaching, and business practice from previous findings and the results.

The authors conducted an experiment with students and experienced managers. Participants had to evaluate eight different business units based on four accounts (sales, EBIT, FPY, and delivery reliability). The information the authors provided to the participants was either presented as tables only, or in tables and graphs.

The empirical results show that supplementary graphs improve decision quality, especially within the manager sample but do not affect decision confidence in a performance evaluation task. The authors furthermore find that managers perform poorly when only provided with tables, and they achieve the overall best score when provided with both tables and graphs, whereas students perform similarly in both conditions. The authors additionally show that proficiency affects not only decision quality but also decision confidence.

The results differ from predictions based solely on the cognitive fit model, as the authors found differences in decision quality to be stronger within the group of managers. The cognitive fit model proposes that decision making performance will improve when the problem representation and the decision making task match. Applying the model to a management context, it is obviously insufficient to explain the differences the authors obtained in the experiment. The authors observed that proficiency plays a role in such performance evaluation tasks.

Based on the results, management accountants should analyse the task that needs to be solved with the reported data. By analysing the type of task, accountants can derive the information processing strategy that will most likely be used by executives for problem solving and determine the suitable visualisation format based on the cognitive fit model. Moderate or complex monitoring tasks will presumably be accessed with perceptual information processing. Data should thus be visualised with graphs.

The authors provide empirical evidence that supplementary graphs in management reports improve decision quality but not decision confidence. The authors furthermore illustrate the limits of the explaining power of the cognitive fit model in a management report context. In an extension of cognitive fit theory, the authors argue that proficiency plays a crucial role in performance evaluation tasks. The authors propose a process for visualisation of management reports based on their findings and previous findings.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how management attention and supply chain complexity affect the decision-making process and cost estimation accuracy of supply chain design (SCD) decisions.

The research follows an embedded case study design. Through the lens of the behavioural theory of the firm, the SCD decision process and realised outcomes are investigated through longitudinal data collection across ten embedded cases with varying degrees of supply chain decision-making complexity and management attention.

The findings suggest that as supply chain decision-making complexity increases, cost estimation accuracy decreases. The extent to which supply chain decision-making complexity is readily recognised influences the selection of strategies for information search and analysis and, thus, impacts resulting cost estimation errors. The paper further shows the importance of management attention for cost estimation accuracy, especially management attention based on conflicting goals induce behaviours that improve estimation ability.

A framework proposing a balance between supply chain decision-making complexity and management attention in SCD decisions is proposed. However, as an embedded case study the research would benefit from replication to externally validate results.

The method used in this study can identify how supply chain complexity is related to cost estimation errors and how management attention is associated with behaviours that improve cost estimation accuracy, indicating the importance of management attention in complex supply chain decision-making.

To be utilized effectively in decision-making processes, management accounting (MA) information should fit the business context and at the same time reflect the roles, responsibilities and values of the actors taking part in the decision-making. This study aims to investigate the limitations for MA information utilization in decision-making. In particular, this study explores limitations stemming from the decision-making process structure and the involvement of several managerial actors.

An exploratory case study of an energy company and its customer company illustrates the current challenges in providing and integrating MA information into decision-making. The analysis is focused on the analytical and actor-based features of the decision-making and thus the limitations for MA information utilization. As a part of the broader research process, the researchers facilitated a meeting in the customer company, where the actors relevant to investment decisions discussed the current limitations in utilizing MA information.

Analytical and actor-based features may take different forms in the decision-making. Some relevant MA information may not be included in an organization’s decision-making process structure that allows merely conventional, yet analytical, decision alternatives. At the same time, certain actors’ viewpoints (such as sustainability metrics) can be excluded from the process without considering the logic behind the exclusion. This case study identifies the following limitations, largely related to insufficient actor-based features in the decision-making: managers may lack expertise in the use of MA tools, managerial interaction may lack reflection on taken-for-granted assumptions, different managers may appreciate different scope, content and timing of MA information and the process structure can ignore the required managerial viewpoints.

This study demonstrates that both the decision-making process structure and the needs of the several actors involved may lead to limitations for MA information utilization. Although many limitations stemmed from the insufficient actor-based orientation in the case study, introducing new MA analyses and extending the validity of analytical approaches may also help overcome some of the limitations. Further research should address possibilities to integrate different actors’ viewpoints with MA information already in the decision-making process structure, find ways to introduce MA information on unconventional decision alternatives and enable reflection among and about relevant actors with respect to decision-making. These means could lead to more effective utilization of MA information for decision-making and, consequently, economically viable decisions.

This study addresses the limitations in MA information utilization by combining the viewpoints of analytical decision-making processes and reflective actors, and thus unveils possibilities for enhancing MA practice.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

A topic currently receiving significant academic and practitioner attention is called evidence-based management. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that this approach is sometimes over-sold and may be a fad. Additionally, evidence-based management fails to fully recognize the importance of tacit knowledge, what Kahneman calls system 1. Evidence-based management does provide tools to better use what Kahneman calls system 2, rationality. Decision-makers need to take advantage of both rational and beyond rational processes.

This is an essay, it is not a report of a study. At this point in time, this paper needs thinking, reflection, pondering, more than a data-based study.

Advocates promote evidence-based management in part to help avoid fads, yet evidence-based management itself has many of the characteristics of a fad. Evidence-based management is based on an objective rational view of the world and suggests highly rational methods of decision-making. However, a rational fact-based might not give sufficient credit to instinct and feelings. Decision-makers should take into account facts, evidence, when making decisions, but not ignore intuition, hunches and feelings. This study is learning that decisions use a galaxy of approaches, with both cognitive and affective flexibility.

As with any opinion-based paper, this lacks empirical support. Proponents ask us to believe in evidence-based management. Neither we, the authors of this paper, nor the proponents of evidence-based management can empirically support the ideas offered. An additional limitation is that the paper is written in one language, English. Translation into another language might yield different meanings.

There are advantages for scholars and practitioners to look at the best available evidence. There can be disadvantages in overlooking non-quantifiable factors.

Those who use evidence-based management should also take into account feelings, ethics, aesthetics, creativity, for the betterment of society. To solve wicked problems one needs more than facts and rational analysis.

The overwhelming majority of those writing about evidence-based management are supporters. This study offers a different view. This paper brings new ideas and new thinking to both the extensive fad literature and the huge evidence-based management literature. Evidence-based management is discussed widely. Google Scholar lists more than two million papers in 2019, 2020 and 2021 on evidence-based management. Readers of this journal should critically evaluate this popular set of ideas.

Participative management is based on the assumption that empowering people throughout the enterprise will result in a more responsive, more flexible, and ultimately more successful enterprise. Participative management is more than a willingness to share influence ‐ formal patterns of participation need to be truly implemented where employees have a right to contribute on all levels of decision‐making. The empirical survey showed that participative management is applied at academic information services in the Gauteng province of South Africa, but more so in low‐level decisions. This indicates that participation is still limited and controlled by management and is not yet experienced as a right by employees.

The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) has been expanding rapidly in recent years, gaining the attention of academics and practitioners. This study provides a structured literature review (SLR) on AI and management decisions (MDs) by analysing the scientific output and defining new research topics.

The study uses a rigorous methodological approach to summarise the state of the art of the past literature. The authors used Scopus as the database for data collection and utilised the Bibliometrix R package. In total, 204 peer-reviewed English articles were collected and analysed.

The results showed that literature in this field is emerging. Studies are focused on using AI as forecasting and classification for management decision-making, AI as a tool to improve knowledge management in organisations and extract information. The cluster analysis revealed the presence of five thematic clusters of studies on the topic.

The study’s originality lies in providing a new perspective on AI for MDs. In particular, the analysis reveals a new classification of research streams and provides fruitful research questions to continue research on the topic.