Daniela Grieco

A CYBERNETIC DECISION MODEL OF MARKET ENTRY

This article analyzes a firms decision of entering a new market—or staying outside—and considers five decision models—optimizing, satisficing, incremental, cybernetic, and random—and their domain of applicability in order to discuss how fit they are in describing this specific decision. Because the cybernetic decision strategy appears to be the most appropriate to deal with the entry decision, the work goes deeper into this model focusing on the degree of uncertainty that the environment represents to the decision makers and to the state of the conflict of interest that arises because this decision implies a coordination problem.

Economics Perspectives on the Entrepreneurial Decision

Abstract The pervasiveness of the entrepreneurial phenomenon draws scholars’ attention to what determines the decision to become an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial decisions imply judgemental decisions. Different approaches in economics conceive such judgemental decisions as firm entry, or real investment in the creation of a new business, or making a career choice in favour of a particular type of self-employment. In this paper, the literature on entrepreneurs’ features, motives, and markets is enriched with theoretical and empirical results from industrial organization, financial economics, and labour economics.

Motivating Cord Blood Donation with Information and Behavioral Nudges

Umbilical cord blood is a source of hematopoietic stem cells essential to treat life-threatening diseases, such as leukemia and lymphoma. However, only a very small percentage of parents donate upon delivery. The decision to donate the cord blood occurs at a very specific time and when parents likely experience emotional, informational, and decisional overloads; these features of cord blood donation make it different from other pro-social activities. In collaboration with an OB-GYN clinic in Milan, Italy, we conducted the first randomized controlled trial that applies tools from behavioral science to foster cord blood donation, and quantified the gains that informational and behavioral “nudges” can achieve. We found that information and “soft” commitments increased donations; approaching expecting parents closer to the delivery date and providing them with multiple reminders, moreover, had the strongest impact. However, a significant portion of women who expressed consent to donate could not do so because of organizational constraints. We conclude that simple, non-invasive behavioral interventions that address information gaps and procrastination, and that increase the salience of the activity can substantially enhance altruistic donations of cord blood, especially when coupled with organizational support.