Judgment in Managerial Decision Making:

Availability, representativeness, and affect heuristics

The availability heuristic can best be summed up 'if it is not worth being remembered, it is not important.' In short, if a problem is available (i.e., preoccupying the manager) it is assumed to be more important than one which is not. Sometimes dealing with immediate problems are necessary, such as when managing a crisis or during an organization's busy season. However, it can also lead to a 'seat of the pants' managerial style in which the manager is always putting out fires rather than anticipating problems before they occur. On one hand, emphasizing recent information can be valuable and prevent a manager from remaining stymied in old behavior patterns. On the other hand, it can mean a lack of historical context for the data of which one is using to make a judgment. A manager of an ice cream...
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