Examining the generalizability of research findings from archival data

This initiative examined systematically the extent to which a large set of archival research findings generalizes across contexts. We repeated the key analyses for 29 original strategic management effects in the same context (direct reproduction) as well as in 52 novel time periods and geographies; 45% of the reproductions returned results matching the original reports together with 55% of tests in different spans of years and 40% of tests in novel geographies. Some original findings were associated with multiple new tests. Reproducibility was the best predictor of generalizability—for the findings that proved directly reproducible, 84% emerged in other available time periods and 57% emerged in other geographies. Overall, only limited empirical evidence emerged for context sensitivity. In a forecasting survey, independent scientists were able to anticipate which effects would find support in tests in new samples

Essais en Stratégie Comportementale : L'Adaptation Re-biaisée, Complexité Mal Comprise, et Aliens Cognitifs

This work centers on the tenet that organizational rationality is bounded: decision makers search, satisfice, and think in the way that is typical (in its integrity) only of humans. The dissertation explores this interplay between search and decision maker’s cognition and demonstrates how biases in characteristic aspects of our thinking can be instruments of behavioral strategy.As a starting point, I take search, sequential generation and evaluation of alternatives, as the first primitive of bounded rationality and complement it with integral elements of human cognition, such as automatic, intuitive thinking, specifically affect heuristic, and imperfect mental representations of reality. With the help of computational models, I track the effects of the corresponding biases (systematic affective preferences and systematic errors in mental representations) over time as organizations adapt to complex environments. This allows me to identify life cycles of the elements of human cognition and show that organizations should manage (rather than eliminate) some biases over time. Finally, I derive predictions and empirically test a subset of my propositions.In conclusion, this work aims to advance the emerging theory of behavioral strategy by jointly considering different primitives of bounded rationality and integrating them with the existing knowledge in organization sciences. A broad question that motivates this work is how organizations can manage the many bounds to human rationality.Ce travail se concentre sur l'idée que la rationalité organisationnelle est limitée: les décideurs recherchent des solutions offrant un minimum de satisfaction et pensent d’une manière qui est typique pour l'homme. La thèse explore cette interaction entre le processus de recherche organisationnelle et la cognition des décideurs et démontre que certains biais (distorsions) dans les aspects caractéristiques de notre pensée peuvent être des instruments de stratégie comportementale.Comme le point de départ, je complète le premier primitif de la rationalité limitée, i.e. la génération et l'évaluation d’alternatives, avec des éléments intégrés de la cognition humaine, tels que la pensée intuitive, spécifiquement l’heuristique d’affect, et des représentations mentales imparfaites. À l'aide de modèles de calcul, j’étudie les effets des biais correspondants à ces éléments de la cognition humaine (préférences affectives et erreurs systématiques dans les représentations mentales) dans le temps lorsque des organisations s'adaptent à des environnements complexes. Cela me permet d'identifier les cycles de vie des éléments de la cognition humaine et de montrer que les organisations devraient gérer (plutôt que d'éliminer) certains biais. Enfin, je fais des propositions et je teste empiriquement un sous-ensemble de mes prédictions.En conclusion, ce travail vise à faire progresser la théorie émergente de la stratégie comportementale en considérant conjointement différents primitifs de la rationalité limitée et en les intégrant aux connaissances existantes en sciences organisationnelles. Une question générale qui motive ce travail est la façon dont les organisations peuvent gérer les nombreuses limites de la rationalité humaine

Re-Biased Search: Managing Intuitive Preferences Over Time

We study organizational search in the presence of intuitive biases. Drawing from work on the psychology of human decision making, we construe biases as unjustified preferences that arise due to automatic, spontaneous thinking. This property of decision making gives rise to a mechanism we label generative recurrence. Present this mechanism, unjustified preferences produce two opposing effects on organizational adaptation: they curb excessive experimentation but at the expense of knowledge accumulation. In the context of organizational search, these regularities allow behavioral treatments to strategically leverage the value of biases. Specifically, our results suggest that re-biasing (adopting the opposite bias) often dominates both de-biasing (eliminating the bias) as well as consistently unbiased search. Our paper provides evidence that managing rather than eliminating biases can be an effective instrument of behavioral strategy

Large population: Base case.

<p>Fig 6 shows how the willingness to collaborate with outgroup members in a larger population (i.e. 1000 agents) changes over time. As with a small population, stigma (unfairly negative beliefs about the subordinate group on the part of members of the dominant group) persists. Increasing the size of the population has no qualitative effects on the main observations (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0194871#pone.0194871.g001" target="_blank">Fig 1</a>).</p

Initial prejudices create cross-generational intergroup mistrust

<div><p>The present investigation modeled the emergence and persistence of intergroup bias and discrimination in artificial societies. Initial unfair prejudices held by members of a dominant group elicit confirmatory behavior (diminished cooperation) from members of a subordinate group via a self-fulfilling prophecy. Further, when individual learning is tempered by conformity to peers, inaccurate beliefs about the stigmatized subordinate group persist long-term. Even completely replacing dominant group members with enlightened individuals through generational change is inadequate to break the cycle of intergroup distrust and non-collaboration. The longer the enlightenment of a society is delayed, the more intergroup trust is irretrievably lost.</p></div

Enlightenment of the dominant group.

<p>The horizontal axis depicts time in logarithmic scale. It is assumed that for <i>t</i> ≥ 10⁴ every period all members of the dominant group are replaced with perfectly enlightened individuals, who see no difference between dominant and subordinate group members and treat them the same. Note that we consider the case of long-term enlightenment, where dominant group members are prepared to continue to collaborate despite a learned unwillingness on the part of the previously stigmatized group. While at the early stages of societal development intergroup collaboration is quickly destroyed, later in the more enlightened times it is not as readily recovered. During the initial 10⁴ periods, the subordinate group’s willingness to collaborate declines on average ~1.67·10³ times faster than it accrues beyond the point of enlightenment.</p

Effects of delayed enlightenment.

<p>The horizontal axis shows the time beyond which the prejudiced members of the dominant group are replaced with perfectly enlightened individuals. The vertical axis depicts the level of unrecovered trust, measured as the difference between dominant and subordinate group members’ willingness to collaborate at the period <i>t</i> = time of enlightenment + 10⁷.</p

Persistence of stigma.

<p>The graph shows the dynamics of intergroup collaboration in the presence of social conformity. The horizontal axis shows time in logarithmic scale. The vertical axis is the average willingness to collaborate with the members of another group (here and below <i>θ</i> = 0.5). To offset the effects of random noise the same (randomly seeded) routine was run 100 times. The main observation is that the dynamics of the willingness to collaborate with others largely stabilize for both the subordinate and dominant group before the convergence occurs. At the end of the simulation (<i>t</i> = 10⁷), although members of the subordinate group are ready to see quality partners in dominant group members in ~40 percent of intergroup interactions, members of the dominant group respond with equal affinity in only ~34 percent of cases.</p

Learning rate in the presence of social conformity.

<p>Fig 3 shows the dynamics of the learning speed when individuals are subject to social conformity. Average speed of learning in a group is defined as a simple average of learning rates among all members of this group. Note that the dynamics of the learning rate is key to understanding our analyses. Over time individuals become less and less likely to learn from their experience and increasingly rely on their prior beliefs, which gradually approach the group’s norm. The initial difference between <i>α</i>_dominant and <i>α</i>_subordinate is due to the greater variance in beliefs within the subordinate group (cf. <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0194871#pone.0194871.s004" target="_blank">S2 Fig</a>). Members of the dominant group preserve a higher learning rate for longer (recall that the learning rate is a function of an individual belief relative to that of the group; greater variance in beliefs, therefore, corresponds to a higher learning rate), because they are more numerous and therefore their group opinion is less sensitive to individual updating of beliefs.</p