R.J.G. Jansen

Information processing and strategic decision-making in small and medium-sized enterprises: The role of human and social capital in attaining decision effectiveness

The decision-making literature emphasizes that in high-stake decisions the characteristics of individual decision-makers, their interpretation of decision situations, and their social ties play an important role in decision outcomes. Despite these results, research on small- and medium-sized enterprises has only partially covered these influences. In a sample of 565 small-business owners, this study identifies the extent to which these characteristics and social ties affect decision effectiveness and the extent to which their impact is mediated by evaluative judgements of the decision situation. Our results suggest that the interplay between human capital and social capital affects decision outcomes via evaluative judgments and this effect is moderated by decision content, in such a way that depending on decision content (internal versus external focus) entrepreneurial experience and the breadth of social capital are either assets or liabilities for decision effectiveness.

Social capital as a decision aid in strategic decision‐making in service organizations

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the role of social capital as a strategic decision aid in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in different service sectors.Design/methodology/approach – Data on 434 strategic decisions in service SMEs was gathered through computer‐aided telephone interviews and analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the mediating role of level of risk acceptance and confidence in the relationship between the breadth of social capital and decision effectiveness.Findings – Evaluative judgments (risk acceptance and confidence) explain the negative effects of social capital on decision effectiveness. Service delivery and dependency on tacit know‐how account for differences between SMEs in different service sectors and serve as explanations for different effects of social capital as a decision aid.Research limitations/implications – The study sheds light on the psychological underpinnings of social capital effects in strategic decisions. Higher varieties of actors make de...

Decision rules and group rationality: cognitive gain or standstill?

Recent research in group cognition points towards the existence of collective cognitive competencies that transcend individual group members’ cognitive competencies. Since rationality is a key cognitive competence for group decision making, and group cognition emerges from the coordination of individual cognition during social interactions, this study tests the extent to which collaborative and consultative decision rules impact the emergence of group rationality. Using a set of decision tasks adapted from the heuristics and biases literature, we evaluate rationality as the extent to which individual choices are aligned with a normative ideal. We further operationalize group rationality as cognitive synergy (the extent to which collective rationality exceeds average or best individual rationality in the group), and we test the effect of collaborative and consultative decision rules in a sample of 176 groups. Our results show that the collaborative decision rule has superior synergic effects as compared to the consultative decision rule. The ninety one groups working in a collaborative fashion made more rational choices (above and beyond the average rationality of their members) than the eighty five groups working in a consultative fashion. Moreover, the groups using a collaborative decision rule were closer to the rationality of their best member than groups using consultative decision rules. Nevertheless, on average groups did not outperformed their best member. Therefore, our results reveal how decision rules prescribing interpersonal interactions impact on the emergence of collective cognitive competencies. They also open potential venues for further research on the emergence of collective rationality in human decision-making groups.

Seed Starting the Microfoundations of Strategy: A Butterfly Effect?

In this paper we focus on the development of the literature on microfoundations of strategy. The objective is to identify the building blocks that make up the microfoundations framework. We start from two seed papers, Felin & Foss (2005) and Gavetti (2005), and combine bibliometrics with network analysis on a selective set of papers. This leads to the identification of papers that contain important building blocks and an assessment of the accumulation of knowledge for developing the argument on the role of individuals and their interactions in the context of routines and capabilities. Our main finding is that the microfoundations framework appears to be very comprehensive. It encompasses more than the role of individuals and their interaction which was our departure point based on the seed papers. The results reveal that it is a combination of individual, social and organizational characteristics, and mechanisms that enables the micro level to travel to the macro level. Moreover the findings show that the importance of aggregation was emphasized by the seed papers and most central papers that were analyzed in-depth. There is convergence in the literature that both components and emergence are contingent on the strategic phenomenon or problem under study. The study also revealed that the accumulation did not really occur as expected by the authors. We identified a citation network that resembles a butterfly, a small body in the center and two large wings. It seems there are two large clusters for the seed papers (the wings) and only a limited number of papers that build on the two papers (the body). The field is still legitimizing itself. Time will tell whether the field will integrate and converge more on the specifics of the microfoundations framework and transform from a butterfly into a caterpillar. Alternatively, more clusters may arise due to the study of specific strategy phenomena.