IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v68y2015i9p2027-2036.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Heuristics in organizations: A review and a research agenda

Author

Listed:
  • Loock, Moritz
  • Hinnen, Gieri

Abstract

A systematic literature review of the articles published in the Journal of Business Research and other organization and management theory (OMT) journals reveals a substantial increase in the number of studies on heuristics. Anticipating the emerging influence of heuristics for OMT, we review the basic principles and the state of the art of its current application. We find that scholars have verified the applicability and value of individual heuristics in management on an individual level. However, scholars lack a detailed understanding of the role of heuristics in organizations. A distinct organization-level perspective on heuristics would contribute to an understanding of organizations as antecedents, subjects, and consequences of heuristics. The study here presents this potential together with a research agenda for heuristics and organizational processes.

Suggested Citation

  • Loock, Moritz & Hinnen, Gieri, 2015. "Heuristics in organizations: A review and a research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(9), pages 2027-2036.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:68:y:2015:i:9:p:2027-2036
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.02.016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296315000880
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.02.016?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Teppo Felin & Nicolai J. Foss & Koen H. Heimeriks & Tammy L. Madsen, 2012. "Microfoundations of Routines and Capabilities: Individuals, Processes, and Structure," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(8), pages 1351-1374, December.
    2. Thomas Åstebro & Samir Elhedhli, 2006. "The Effectiveness of Simple Decision Heuristics: Forecasting Commercial Success for Early-Stage Ventures," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(3), pages 395-409, March.
    3. Punj, Girish & Moore, Robert, 2009. "Information search and consideration set formation in a web-based store environment," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(6), pages 644-650, June.
    4. J. Robert Baum & Stefan Wally, 2003. "Strategic decision speed and firm performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(11), pages 1107-1129, November.
    5. Jerker Denrell & Christina Fang, 2010. "Predicting the Next Big Thing: Success as a Signal of Poor Judgment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(10), pages 1653-1667, October.
    6. Anja Achtziger & Carlos Alós-Ferrer, 2014. "Fast or Rational? A Response-Times Study of Bayesian Updating," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(4), pages 923-938, April.
    7. Margaret Peteraf & Giada Di Stefano & Gianmario Verona, 2013. "The elephant in the room of dynamic capabilities: Bringing two diverging conversations together," Post-Print hal-00982438, HAL.
    8. Olsson, Henrik, 2014. "Measuring overconfidence: Methodological problems and statistical artifacts," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1766-1770.
    9. Hu, Zhan & Wang, X.T., 2014. "Trust or not: Heuristics for making trust-based choices in HR management," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1710-1716.
    10. Roland Calori & Gerry Johnson & Philippe Sarnin, 1994. "Ceos' cognitive maps and the scope of the organization," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(6), pages 437-457, July.
    11. Felipe A. Csaszar & J. P. Eggers, 2013. "Organizational Decision Making: An Information Aggregation View," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(10), pages 2257-2277, October.
    12. Hauser, John R., 2014. "Consideration-set heuristics," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1688-1699.
    13. Joseph F. Porac & Howard Thomas & Charles Baden‐Fuller, 1989. "Competitive Groups As Cognitive Communities: The Case Of Scottish Knitwear Manufacturers," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 397-416, July.
    14. Ewing, Michael T. & Jevons, Colin P. & Khalil, Elias L., 2009. "Brand death: A developmental model of senescence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 332-338, March.
    15. Shefrin, Hersh & Nicols, Christina M., 2014. "Credit card behavior, financial styles, and heuristics," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1679-1687.
    16. Kathleen M. Eisenhardt & Jeffrey A. Martin, 2000. "Dynamic capabilities: what are they?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(10‐11), pages 1105-1121, October.
    17. Natalia Vuori & Timo Vuori, 2014. "Comment on “Heuristics in the strategy context” by Bingham and Eisenhardt (2011)," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(11), pages 1689-1697, November.
    18. Denis A. Grégoire & Andrew C. Corbett & Jeffery S. McMullen, 2011. "The Cognitive Perspective in Entrepreneurship: An Agenda for Future Research," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48, pages 1443-1477, September.
    19. Sarah Kaplan, 2011. "Research in Cognition and Strategy: Reflections on Two Decades of Progress and a Look to the Future," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 665-695, May.
    20. Mihnea C. Moldoveanu & Robert M. Bauer, 2004. "On the Relationship Between Organizational Complexity and Organizational Structuration," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(1), pages 98-118, February.
    21. Berg, Nathan, 2014. "Success from satisficing and imitation: Entrepreneurs' location choice and implications of heuristics for local economic development," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1700-1709.
    22. Woodside, Arch G., 2014. "Embrace•perform•model: Complexity theory, contrarian case analysis, and multiple realities," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(12), pages 2495-2503.
    23. Persson, Andreas & Ryals, Lynette, 2014. "Making customer relationship decisions: Analytics v rules of thumb," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1725-1732.
    24. Azar, Ofer H., 2014. "The default heuristic in strategic decision making: When is it optimal to choose the default without investing in information search?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1744-1748.
    25. Earl, Peter E. & Wakeley, Tim, 2010. "Economic perspectives on the development of complex products for increasingly demanding customers," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 1122-1132, October.
    26. Graefe, Andreas & Armstrong, J. Scott, 2011. "Conditions under which index models are useful: Reply to bio-index commentaries," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(7), pages 693-695, July.
    27. Woodside, Arch G., 2012. "Incompetency training: Theory, practice, and remedies," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 279-293.
    28. Markus C. Becker, 2004. "Organizational routines: a review of the literature," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 13(4), pages 643-678, August.
    29. Moore, David J. & Homer, Pamela Miles, 2008. "Self-brand connections: The role of attitude strength and autobiographical memory primes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 61(7), pages 707-714, July.
    30. Mousavi, Shabnam & Kheirandish, Reza, 2014. "Behind and beyond a shared definition of ecological rationality: A functional view of heuristics," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1780-1785.
    31. Wästlund, Erik & Otterbring, Tobias & Gustafsson, Anders & Shams, Poja, 2015. "Heuristics and resource depletion: eye-tracking customers’ in situ gaze behavior in the field," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 95-101.
    32. Said Elbanna & John Child, 2007. "The Influence of Decision, Environmental and Firm Characteristics on the Rationality of Strategic Decision‐Making," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 561-591, June.
    33. Monti, Marco & Pelligra, Vittorio & Martignon, Laura & Berg, Nathan, 2014. "Retail investors and financial advisors: New evidence on trust and advice taking heuristics," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1749-1757.
    34. David Cesarini & Magnus Johannesson & Patrik K. E. Magnusson & Björn Wallace, 2012. "The Behavioral Genetics of Behavioral Anomalies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(1), pages 21-34, January.
    35. Nikolaeva, Ralitza, 2014. "Interorganizational imitation heuristics arising from cognitive frames," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1758-1765.
    36. David J. Teece, 2007. "Explicating dynamic capabilities: the nature and microfoundations of (sustainable) enterprise performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(13), pages 1319-1350, December.
    37. Fifić, Mario & Gigerenzer, Gerd, 2014. "Are two interviewers better than one?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1771-1779.
    38. George P. Huber, 1991. "Organizational Learning: The Contributing Processes and the Literatures," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 88-115, February.
    39. James P. Walsh, 1995. "Managerial and Organizational Cognition: Notes from a Trip Down Memory Lane," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(3), pages 280-321, June.
    40. David J. Teece & Gary Pisano & Amy Shuen, 1997. "Dynamic capabilities and strategic management," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(7), pages 509-533, August.
    41. Danny Miller, 1986. "Configurations of strategy and structure: Towards a synthesis," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 233-249, May.
    42. Mousavi, Shabnam & Gigerenzer, Gerd, 2014. "Risk, uncertainty, and heuristics," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1671-1678.
    43. MacGillivray, Brian H., 2014. "Fast and frugal crisis management: An analysis of rule-based judgment and choice during water contamination events," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1717-1724.
    44. Mihnea Moldoveanu, 2009. "Thinking strategically about thinking strategically: the computational structure and dynamics of managerial problem selection and formulation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(7), pages 737-763, July.
    45. Markus C. Becker, 2004. "Organizational routines : a review of the literature," Post-Print hal-00279010, HAL.
    46. Manimala, Mathew J., 1992. "Entrepreneurial heuristics: A comparison between high PL (pioneering-innovative) and low PI ventures," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 7(6), pages 477-504, November.
    47. Rusetski, Alexander, 2014. "Pricing by intuition: Managerial choices with limited information," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(8), pages 1733-1743.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andreas Ortmann & Leonidas Spiliopoulos, 2017. "The beauty of simplicity? (Simple) heuristics and the opportunities yet to be realized," Chapters, in: Morris Altman (ed.), Handbook of Behavioural Economics and Smart Decision-Making, chapter 7, pages 119-136, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Zilja, Flladina & Benito, Gabriel R.G. & Boustanifar, Hamid & Zhang, Dan, 2023. "CEO wealth and cross-border acquisitions by SMEs," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(6).
    3. Merigó, José M. & Mas-Tur, Alicia & Roig-Tierno, Norat & Ribeiro-Soriano, Domingo, 2015. "A bibliometric overview of the Journal of Business Research between 1973 and 2014," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(12), pages 2645-2653.
    4. Simone Guercini, 2019. "Heuristics as tales from the field: the problem of scope," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 18(2), pages 191-205, December.
    5. Guercini, Simone & Milanesi, Matilde, 2020. "Heuristics in international business: A systematic literature review and directions for future research," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 26(4).
    6. Krawinkler, Andreas & Breitenecker, Robert J. & Maresch, Daniela, 2022. "Heuristic decision-making in the green energy context:Bringing together simple rules and data-driven mathematical optimization," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    7. Wenzel, Matthias & Stjerne, Iben Sandal, 2021. "Heuristics-in-use: Toward a practice theory of organizational heuristics," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    8. Ghezzi, Antonio, 2020. "How Entrepreneurs make sense of Lean Startup Approaches: Business Models as cognitive lenses to generate fast and frugal Heuristics," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    9. Hinnen, Gieri & Hinnen, Andri, 2016. "Vom Drehbuchautor zum Showrunner – der Strategieprozess als adaptives Storytelling," Marketing Review St.Gallen, Universität St.Gallen, Institut für Marketing und Customer Insight, vol. 33(1), pages 54-62.
    10. Niittymies, Aleksi, 2020. "Heuristic decision-making in firm internationalization: The influence of context-specific experience," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(6).
    11. Mercedes Bleda & Elisabeth Krull & Jonatan Pinkse & Eleni Christodoulou, 2023. "Organizational heuristics and firms' sensemaking for climate change adaptation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(8), pages 6124-6137, December.
    12. Fei Song & Alex Bitektine, 2018. "Firm Status and Evaluators’ Trust: The Many Ways to Trust a Firm," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(2), pages 503-518, December.
    13. To, Chester Kin-man & Yee, Rachel W.Y. & Mok, P.Y. & Chau, K.P. & Wong, Man Chong & Cheung, N.M., 2018. "Collaboration reasoning or social heuristics? Value proposition validity in omnium-gatherum business models," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 550-559.
    14. Manvendra Janmaijaya & Amit K. Shukla & Ajith Abraham & Pranab K. Muhuri, 2018. "A Scientometric Study of Neurocomputing Publications (1992–2018): An Aerial Overview of Intrinsic Structure," Publications, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-22, July.
    15. Torsten M. Pieper & Anne D. Smith & Jerry Kudlats & Joseph H. Astrachan, 2015. "The Persistence of Multifamily Firms: Founder Imprinting, Simple Rules, and Monitoring Processes," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(6), pages 1313-1337, November.
    16. Lyngdoh, Teidorlang & Chefor, Ellis & Hochstein, Bryan & Britton, Benjamin P. & Amyx, Douglas, 2021. "A systematic literature review of negative psychological states and behaviors in sales," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 518-533.
    17. Simone Guercini, 2022. "Scope of heuristics and digitalization: the case of marketing automation," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 21(2), pages 151-164, November.
    18. Radu Atanasiu & Riku Ruotsalainen & Svetlana N. Khapova, 2023. "A Simple Rule is Born: How CEOs Distill Heuristics," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(5), pages 1064-1104, July.
    19. Stingl, Verena & Geraldi, Joana, 2021. "A research agenda for studying project decision-behaviour through the lenses of simple heuristics," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    20. Sebastian Kruse & David Bendig & Malte Brettel, 2023. "How Does CEO Decision Style Influence Firm Performance? The Mediating Role of Speed and Innovativeness in New Product Development," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(5), pages 1205-1235, July.
    21. Gilbert-Saad, Antoine & Siedlok, Frank & McNaughton, Rod B., 2023. "Entrepreneurial heuristics: Making strategic decisions in highly uncertain environments," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    22. Fernando F. Suarez & Juan S. Montes, 2019. "An Integrative Perspective of Organizational Responses: Routines, Heuristics, and Improvisations in a Mount Everest Expedition," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(3), pages 573-599, May.
    23. Natalia Vuori & Tomi Laamanen & Maurizio Zollo, 2023. "Capability Development in Infrequent Organizational Processes: Unveiling the Interplay of Heuristics and Causal Knowledge," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(5), pages 1341-1381, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Reza Kheirandish & Shabnam Mousavi, 2018. "Herbert Simon, innovation, and heuristics," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 17(1), pages 97-109, November.
    2. Neil M Kay, 2018. "We need to talk: opposing narratives and conflicting perspectives in the conversation on routines," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 27(6), pages 943-956.
    3. Jutta Wollersheim & Koen H. Heimeriks, 2016. "Dynamic Capabilities and Their Characteristic Qualities: Insights from a Lab Experiment," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(2), pages 233-248, April.
    4. Hendrik Wilhelm & Indre Maurer & Mark Ebers, 2022. "(When) Are Dynamic Capabilities Routine? A Mixed‐Methods Configurational Analysis," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(6), pages 1531-1562, September.
    5. Verreynne, Martie-Louise & Hine, Damian & Coote, Len & Parker, Rachel, 2016. "Building a scale for dynamic learning capabilities: The role of resources, learning, competitive intent and routine patterning," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 4287-4303.
    6. Davies, Andrew & Frederiksen, Lars & Cacciatori, Eugenia & Hartmann, Andreas, 2018. "The long and winding road: Routine creation and replication in multi-site organizations," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(8), pages 1403-1417.
    7. Bhatti, Waheed Akbar & Larimo, Jorma & Servais, Per, 2020. "Relationship learning: A conduit for internationalization," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(3).
    8. Haarhaus, Tim & Liening, Andreas, 2020. "Building dynamic capabilities to cope with environmental uncertainty: The role of strategic foresight," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    9. Desirée Knoppen & Louise Knight, 2022. "Pursuing sustainability advantage: The dynamic capabilities of born sustainable firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1789-1813, May.
    10. Jose L. Barbero & Alicia Ramos & Catherine Chiang, 2017. "Restructuring in dynamic environments: a dynamic capabilities perspective," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(4), pages 593-615.
    11. Wohlgemuth, Veit & Wenzel, Matthias, 2016. "Dynamic capabilities and routinization," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 1944-1948.
    12. Björn Michaelis & Shalini Rogbeer & Lars Schweizer & Zafer Özleblebici, 2021. "Clarifying the boundary conditions of value creation within dynamic capabilities framework: a grafting approach," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(6), pages 1797-1820, August.
    13. Wójcik, Piotr & Obłój, Krzysztof & Buono, Anthony F., 2022. "Addressing social concern through business-nonprofit collaboration: Microfoundations of a firm’s dynamic capability for social responsibility," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 119-139.
    14. Ilgaz Arikan & Ipek Koparan & Asli M Arikan & Oded Shenkar, 2022. "Dynamic capabilities and internationalization of authentic firms: Role of heritage assets, administrative heritage, and signature processes," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(4), pages 601-635, June.
    15. Xinwei Ye & Lei Ma & Junwen Feng & Yang Cheng & Zheng Liu, 2018. "Impact of Technology Habitual Domain on Ambidextrous Innovation: Case Study of a Chinese High-Tech Enterprise," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-21, December.
    16. Jean-Philippe Vergne & Colette Depeyre, 2015. "How do firms adapt? A fuzzy-set analysis of the role of cognition and capabilities in U.S. defense firms’ responses to 9/11," Post-Print hal-01274005, HAL.
    17. Dehua Gao & Flaminio Squazzoni & Xiuquan Deng, 2018. "The Intertwining Impact of Intraorganizational and Routine Networks on Routine Replication Dynamics: An Agent-Based Model," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-23, November.
    18. Ugo Rizzo & Daniela Freddi & Laura Ramaciotti, 2015. "The Impact of New Scientific Knowledge on Firms’ Routines and Capabilities: The Case of Mechatronics," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(06), pages 1-20, December.
    19. João José M. Ferreira & Cristina I. Fernandes & Vanessa Ratten, 2016. "A co-citation bibliometric analysis of strategic management research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(1), pages 1-32, October.
    20. Cristina Fernandes & João J. Ferreira & Mário L. Raposo & Cristina Estevão & Marta Peris-Ortiz & Carlos Rueda-Armengot, 2017. "The dynamic capabilities perspective of strategic management: a co-citation analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(1), pages 529-555, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:68:y:2015:i:9:p:2027-2036. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.