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The effect of cognitive diversity on the illusion of control bias in strategic decisions: An experimental investigation

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  • Meissner, Philip
  • Wulf, Torsten

Abstract

By integrating cognitive diversity into debiasing literature, this paper contributes towards opening the black box of executive judgment. Based on information processing theory we investigate the role of cognitive diversity in strategic decision making. We apply a vignette-based experimental research design to examine the effect of cognitive diversity in teams on decision maker's illusion of control. The results of these experiments provide evidence for a positive influence of high cognitive diversity for debiasing judgment while similarly indicating no such effect for groups with low cognitive diversity. These findings suggest that group composition aspects can play an important role for improving judgment in decision making teams and open promising new avenues for studying debiasing in behavioral strategy research.

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  • Meissner, Philip & Wulf, Torsten, 2017. "The effect of cognitive diversity on the illusion of control bias in strategic decisions: An experimental investigation," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 430-439.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eurman:v:35:y:2017:i:4:p:430-439
    DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2016.12.004
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