Boris Eisenbart, Dan Lovallo, Massimo Garbuio, Matteo Cristofaro and Andy Dong
Does future thinking enhance managers’ innovative behavior? This study aims to posit that the ability to project events while considering current/future variables and their…
Abstract
Purpose
Does future thinking enhance managers’ innovative behavior? This study aims to posit that the ability to project events while considering current/future variables and their development (i.e. future thinking) – inextricably linked with the knowledge creation process – may enhance the manager’s accuracy and the number of potentially successful innovative ideas for organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use a between-group experiment to examine the innovation choices of 47 subjects with experience in evaluating the market potential of new products when asked to support or otherwise reject real-life innovation-related ideas. The authors test the accuracy of decisions made by participants primed to apply future thinking, practically implemented through abductive reasoning, in their decision-making.
Findings
The authors found a significant change in managers’ innovative choices, with participants primed for future thinking making significantly more accurate decisions than the control group. Those participants both correctly chose innovation-related ideas with significant future potential and rejected ideas with limited potential that ultimately failed.
Originality/value
This study explores how future thinking enhances managers’ innovative behavior in organizations. It provides empirical evidence on how future thinking, practiced through abductive reasoning, can work to foster innovative behavior, which is an antecedent of knowledge creation. Organizations that foster future thinking concurrently create knowledge, increasing their competitive advantage in the long run.
Details
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Boris Eisenbart, Massimo Garbuio, Daniele Mascia and Federica Morandi
Managers spend a great deal of time in meetings making decisions critical to organisational success, yet the design aspects of meetings remain largely understudied. The purpose of…
Abstract
Purpose
Managers spend a great deal of time in meetings making decisions critical to organisational success, yet the design aspects of meetings remain largely understudied. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the potential impact of one critical design aspect of meetings – namely, whether a decision to be taken (or the meeting in general) was scheduled or not – on the use of distributed information, information elaboration, conflict, speed of decision making, and, ultimately, decision-making effectiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
The research presented in this paper combines a literature review with empirical data obtained from questionnaires and direct observation of decision making meetings on organisational issues in a hospital. One meeting was scheduled, the other two were unscheduled. A second questionnaire was administered 12 months after the respective decision making meetings to explore and evaluate the efficiency of the decisions made and their implementation.
Findings
This paper suggests that a scheduled meeting with a shared agenda of all decisions to be taken may induce decision makers to form opinions upfront at the meeting, with these opinions eventually serving as sources of conflict during group discussion. Because of the nature of the conflict generated, these meetings are more likely to run long and to not deliver the expected outcomes.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the debate on group decision-making processes by examining the effect of meeting scheduling on information elaboration and conflict in real-world decision-making settings. Although robust evidence has supported the existence of relationships between information elaboration, conflict, and decision-making effectiveness, previous studies have mainly focused on the effects of these processes during scheduled meetings and experimental settings. The findings of the present study show the effect of meeting scheduling on decision-making effectiveness in real-world settings.