A research agenda on de-biasing the board

Abstract

Boards of directors have the duty to make sound decisions in order to govern the firms they are responsible for. A considerable amount of board misleading during decision-making has mind biases as their root causes. The last decades witnessed plenty of disastrous governance decisions which could be avoided, had some cognitive bias been prevented. Because board directors engage in strategic decisions, the potential negative effects of such biases are of utmost importance, as shown through countless examples. The identification and awareness of such mind traps constitute the first layer of protection, however, is not enough. Some frameworks and tools are in need to address such decision-making traps, in order to avoid organizational mis-performance or even disaster. Measures are needed to counter the decision bias, or even neutralise them, at the board level. Being the need for measures to minimise or neutralize the negative impacts of mind biases obvious, this research is focused on identifying solutions and understanding how such solutions can be implemented in practice