Information ambiguity is prevalent in organizations and may in¯uence management decisions. This study examines, given imprecise probabilities or outcomes, how managers decide which department's performance to investigate further when they are provided with performance benchmarks expressed in numerical intervals. Seventy-nine MBA students participated in two experiments involving investigation decisions. We presented participants with interval benchmarks of a ®rm's expenses. Being below or above the benchmark should have been seen as equally negative. We found that, when facing outcome ambiguity, our participants consistently preferred to investigate further those departments whose performance was described as having an ambiguous outcome (when the outcome's range was centered either below or above the interval benchmark). However, when facing probabilistic ambiguity, there were two predominant choice patterns: consistently choosing to investigate the department whose performance is described with an ambiguous probability, or consistently choosing to investigate the department with unambiguous performance. To gain further insight, we conducted a follow-up study collecting written protocols of participants' reasons for making choices involving ambiguous performance information. The results show that our participants displayed similar decision-making processes when facing outcome ambiguity and probabilistic ambiguity.
Information ambiguity is prevalent in organizations and may influence management decisions. This study draws upon research on information bias and ambiguity research to empirically test how information ambiguity and non-financial factors (e.g., interpersonal information) affect managers’ capital budgeting decisions when in good vs. bad times. Ninety-two managers completed two experiments. In Experiment One, the information was presented sequentially. Our results show that without the presence of non-financial factors, managers tend to maximize the firm value. After receiving non-financial factors, a significant number of managers switched to the self-serving option in good times (the gain condition) but stayed with firm-value maximization in bad times (the loss condition). In Experiment Two, the information was presented simultaneously in the presence and absence of ambiguity. We found that in the presence of ambiguity, the information presentation has no impact on managers’ self-serving bias in good times or their firm-value maximization tendency in bad times. Interestingly, we also observed managers’ use of interpersonal information even in the absence of ambiguity. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005information ambiguity, firm-value maximization, self-serving bias, presentation mode,
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