Abstract
The article examines the gap between theory and practice of marketing in small and medium-sized enterprises, proposing the thesis that a decisive contribution to understand and overcome it can be derived from the study of heuristics that characterize the behavior of top decision makers. After an analysis of the evolution of the literature on heuristics in cognitive science and especially in experimental psychology, this article examines the increasing attention paid to the heuristics in the study of marketing and strategic management. The article discusses the types of heuristics proposed in the literature, critically compared with two dimensions of heuristics (specificity and convergence) the discussion of which represents an original content of the paper as emerging from a case analysis of an Italian firm of the textile sector.References
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Åstebro T., Elhedhli S. (2006) The effectiveness of simple decision heuristics: forecasting commercial success for early-stage ventures, Management Science, 52, 395-409
Axelrod R. (1984) The evolution of cooperation, Basic Books, New York
Baron R.A., Ensley M.D. (2006) Opportunity recognition as the detection of meaningful patterns: evidence from comparisons of novice and experienced entrepreneurs, Management Science, 52(9), 1331-1344
Bingham C.B., Eisenhardt K.M. (2011) Rational heuristics: the ‘simple rules’ that strategists learn from process experience, Strategic Management Journal, 32(13), 1437-1464
Bingham C.B., Eisenhardt K.M., Furr N.R. (2007) What makes a process a capability? Heuristics, strategy and effective capture of opportunities, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(1/2), 27-47
Birley S. (1985) The role of networks in the entrepreneurial process, Journal of Business Venturing, 1, 107-117
Boyd R., Richerson P.J. (2005) The origin and evolution of cultures, Oxford University Press, New York
Busenitz L.W., Barney J.B. (1997) Differences between entrepreneurs and managers in large organizations: biases and heuristics in strategic decision-making, Journal of Business Venturing, 12(1), 9-30
Carson D., Cromie S., McGowan P., Hill J. (1995) Marketing and entrepreneurship in SMEs.An innovative approach, Prentice-Hall, London
Cohen M.D., Burkhart R., Dosi G., Egidi M., Marengo L., Warglien M., Winter S. (1996) Routines and other recurring action patterns of organizations: contemporary research issues, Industrial and Corporate Change, 5(3), 653-698
Cowan N. (2001) The magical number 4 in short-term memory: a reconsideration of mental storage capacity, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 87-185
Davis J.P., Eisenhardt K.M., Bingham C.B. (2009) Optimal structure, market dynamism, and the strategy of simple rules, Administrative Science Quarterly, 54(3), 413-452
DeMiguel V., Garlappi L., Uppal R. (2009) Optimal versus naive diversification: how inefficient is the 1/N strategy? Review of Financial Studies, 22(5), 1915-1953
Einhorn H.J., Hogarth R.M. (1975) Unit weighting scheme for decision making, Organizational Behavior Human Decision Process, 13, 171-192
Eisenhardt K.M. (1989) Building theories from case study research, Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532-550
Eisenhardt K.M., Sull D. (2001) Strategy as simple rules, Harvard Business Review, 79(1), 107-116
Fishburn P.C. (1974) Lexicographic orders, utilities and decision rules: a survey, Management Science, 20, 1442-1471
Gigerenzer G. (1996) On narrow norms and vague heuristics: A reply to Kahneman and Tversky, Psychological Review, 103, 592-596.
Gigerenzer G. (2007) Gut feelings. The intelligence of the unconscious, Penguin Books, New York
Gigerenzer G., Brighton H. (2009) Homo heuristicus: why biased minds make better inferences, Topics in Cognitive Science, 1, 107-143
Gigerenzer G., Goldstein D.G. (1996) Reasoning the fast and frugal way: models of bounded rationality, Psychological Review, 103, 650-669
Gigerenzer G., Todd P.M., & the ABC Research Group (1999) Simple heuristics that make us smart, New York, Oxford University Press
Goldstein D.G., Gigerenzer G. (2002) Models of ecological rationality: the recognition heuristic, Psychological Review, 109, 75-90
Guercini S. (2004) Developing the researcher-manager interface in the case analysis process, Management Decision, 42(3/4), 464-472
Guercini S. (2005) Marketing imprenditoriale, marketing manageriale e conoscenza di mercato del vertice d’impresa, Mercati & Competitività, n.1, 143-164
Guercini S. (2012) New approaches to heuristic processes and entrepreneurial cognition of the market, Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, 14(2), 199-213.
Haley U.C., Stumpf S.A. (1989) Cognitive trails in strategic decision-making: linking theories of personalities and cognitions, Journal of Management Studies, 26(5), 477-497
Hills G.E., Hultman C.M., Miles M.P. (2008) The evolution and development of entrepreneurial marketing, Journal of Small Business Management, 46(1), 99-112
Hoyer W.D., Brown S.P. (1990) Effects of brand awareness on choice for a common, repeat purchase product, Journal of Consumer Research, 17, 141-148
Jacoby L.L., Dallas M. (1981) On the relationship between autobiographical memory and perceptual learning, Journal of Experential Psychology, 110, 306-340
Johnson E.J., Goldstein D.G. (2003) Do defaults save lives? Science, 302, 1338-1339
Kahneman D. (2003) Maps of bounded rationality: a perspective on intuitive judgment and choice, in T. Frangsmyr (ed.) Les Prix Nobel: The Nobel Prizes 2002, 449-489, Nobel Found, Stockholm
Kahneman D., Tversky A. (1973) On the psychology of prediction, Psychological Review, 80(4), 237-251
Kahneman D., Tversky A. (1996) On the reality of cognitive illusions. A reply to Gigerenzer’s critique, Psychological Review, 103, 582-591
Kahneman D., Tversky A. (1972) Subjective probability: a judgment of representativeness, Cognitive Psychology, 3, 430-454
Katsikopoulos K.V., Gigerenzer G. (2012) Behavioral operations management: a blind spot and a research program, Journal of Supply Chain Management, in press
Kelman M.G. (2011) The heuristic debate, Oxford University Press, New York, NY
Kruglanski A.W., Gigerenzer G. (2011) Intuitive and deliberate judgements are based on common principles, Psychological Review, 118(1), 97-109
Levinthal D.A. (2011) A behavioral approach to strategy – What’s the alternative? Strategic Management Journal, 32(13), 1517-1523
Manimala M. (1992) Entrepreneurial heuristics: a comparison between high PI (Pioneering-Innovative) and low PI ventures, Journal of Business Venturing, 7(6), 477-504
March J.G. (1994) A primer on decision making. How decisions happen, The Free Press, New York.
Marchini I. (1995) L’imprenditorialità manageriale, Piccola Impresa / Small Business, 1, 3-12
Miller G.A. (1956) The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information, Psychological Review, 63, 81-97
Musgrave A. (1974) Logical versus historical theories of confirmation, British Journal of Philosophy of Science, 25, 1-23
Nelson R.R., Winter S.G. (1982) An evolutionary theory of economic change, BelknapHarvard University Press, Cambridge MA
Newell A., Simon H.A. (1972) Human problem solving, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs
Paoli M. (2006) Management della complessità, complessità del management, Franco Angeli, Milano
Parikh J. (1994) Intuition: the new frontier of management, Blackwell Business, Oxford
Piattelli-Palmarini M. (2005) Psicologia ed economia delle scelte. Quattro lezioni al Collegio di Francia, Codice Editore, Torino
Savage L.J. (1954) The foundation of statistics, New York, Dover, 2nd edition
Simon H.A. (1955) A behavioral model of rational choice, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 69, 99-118
Simon H.A. (1967) The logic of heuristic decision making, in N. Rescher (ed.) The logic of decision and action, Pittsburg, The University of Pittsburg, 1-20
Simon H.A. (1990) Invariants of human behavior, Annual Review of Psychology, 41, 1-19
Stoelhorst J.W. (2007) The Naturalist View of Universal Darwinism: An Application to the Evolutionary Theory of the Firm, in G.M. Hodgson (ed.) The Evolution of Economic Institutions: A Critical Reader. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 233-251
Strack F., Martin L.L., Stepper S. (1988) Inhibiting and facilitating condition of facial expressions: a non-obtrusive test of the facial feedback hypothesis, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 768-777
Switzer F.S., Sniezek J.A. (1991) Judgement processes in motivation: anchoring and adjustment effects on judgment and behavior, Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 49(2), 208-229
Tomasello M. (2009) Why we cooperate, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Tversky A., Kahneman D. (1971) Belief in the law of small numbers, Psychological Bulletin, 76(2), 105-110
Tversky A., Kahneman D. (1974) Judgement under uncertainty: heuristics and biases, Science, 185, 1124-1131
Varaldo R., Dalli D., Resciniti R. (2006) Marketing-non-marketing all’italiana: virtù, limiti e prospettive, Congresso Internazionale “Le Tendenze del Marketing”, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia, 20-21 gennaio
Wilson TD., Schooler J.W. (1991) Thinking too much: introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(2), 181-192
Wübben M., von Wangenheim F. (2008) Instant customer base analysis: managerial heuristics often “get it right”, Journal of Marketing, 72, 82-93
Yin R.K. (1984) Case study research. Design and methods, Sage, Thousand Oaks
Zollo M., Reuer J.J., Singh H. (2002) Interrogational routines and performance in strategic alliances, Organization Science, 13(6), 701-713
Åstebro T., Elhedhli S. (2006) The effectiveness of simple decision heuristics: forecasting commercial success for early-stage ventures, Management Science, 52, 395-409
Axelrod R. (1984) The evolution of cooperation, Basic Books, New York
Baron R.A., Ensley M.D. (2006) Opportunity recognition as the detection of meaningful patterns: evidence from comparisons of novice and experienced entrepreneurs, Management Science, 52(9), 1331-1344
Bingham C.B., Eisenhardt K.M. (2011) Rational heuristics: the ‘simple rules’ that strategists learn from process experience, Strategic Management Journal, 32(13), 1437-1464
Bingham C.B., Eisenhardt K.M., Furr N.R. (2007) What makes a process a capability? Heuristics, strategy and effective capture of opportunities, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(1/2), 27-47
Birley S. (1985) The role of networks in the entrepreneurial process, Journal of Business Venturing, 1, 107-117
Boyd R., Richerson P.J. (2005) The origin and evolution of cultures, Oxford University Press, New York
Busenitz L.W., Barney J.B. (1997) Differences between entrepreneurs and managers in large organizations: biases and heuristics in strategic decision-making, Journal of Business Venturing, 12(1), 9-30
Carson D., Cromie S., McGowan P., Hill J. (1995) Marketing and entrepreneurship in SMEs.An innovative approach, Prentice-Hall, London
Cohen M.D., Burkhart R., Dosi G., Egidi M., Marengo L., Warglien M., Winter S. (1996) Routines and other recurring action patterns of organizations: contemporary research issues, Industrial and Corporate Change, 5(3), 653-698
Cowan N. (2001) The magical number 4 in short-term memory: a reconsideration of mental storage capacity, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 87-185
Davis J.P., Eisenhardt K.M., Bingham C.B. (2009) Optimal structure, market dynamism, and the strategy of simple rules, Administrative Science Quarterly, 54(3), 413-452
DeMiguel V., Garlappi L., Uppal R. (2009) Optimal versus naive diversification: how inefficient is the 1/N strategy? Review of Financial Studies, 22(5), 1915-1953
Einhorn H.J., Hogarth R.M. (1975) Unit weighting scheme for decision making, Organizational Behavior Human Decision Process, 13, 171-192
Eisenhardt K.M. (1989) Building theories from case study research, Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532-550
Eisenhardt K.M., Sull D. (2001) Strategy as simple rules, Harvard Business Review, 79(1), 107-116
Fishburn P.C. (1974) Lexicographic orders, utilities and decision rules: a survey, Management Science, 20, 1442-1471
Gigerenzer G. (1996) On narrow norms and vague heuristics: A reply to Kahneman and Tversky, Psychological Review, 103, 592-596.
Gigerenzer G. (2007) Gut feelings. The intelligence of the unconscious, Penguin Books, New York
Gigerenzer G., Brighton H. (2009) Homo heuristicus: why biased minds make better inferences, Topics in Cognitive Science, 1, 107-143
Gigerenzer G., Goldstein D.G. (1996) Reasoning the fast and frugal way: models of bounded rationality, Psychological Review, 103, 650-669
Gigerenzer G., Todd P.M., & the ABC Research Group (1999) Simple heuristics that make us smart, New York, Oxford University Press
Goldstein D.G., Gigerenzer G. (2002) Models of ecological rationality: the recognition heuristic, Psychological Review, 109, 75-90
Guercini S. (2004) Developing the researcher-manager interface in the case analysis process, Management Decision, 42(3/4), 464-472
Guercini S. (2005) Marketing imprenditoriale, marketing manageriale e conoscenza di mercato del vertice d’impresa, Mercati & Competitività, n.1, 143-164
Guercini S. (2012) New approaches to heuristic processes and entrepreneurial cognition of the market, Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, 14(2), 199-213.
Haley U.C., Stumpf S.A. (1989) Cognitive trails in strategic decision-making: linking theories of personalities and cognitions, Journal of Management Studies, 26(5), 477-497
Hills G.E., Hultman C.M., Miles M.P. (2008) The evolution and development of entrepreneurial marketing, Journal of Small Business Management, 46(1), 99-112
Hoyer W.D., Brown S.P. (1990) Effects of brand awareness on choice for a common, repeat purchase product, Journal of Consumer Research, 17, 141-148
Jacoby L.L., Dallas M. (1981) On the relationship between autobiographical memory and perceptual learning, Journal of Experential Psychology, 110, 306-340
Johnson E.J., Goldstein D.G. (2003) Do defaults save lives? Science, 302, 1338-1339
Kahneman D. (2003) Maps of bounded rationality: a perspective on intuitive judgment and choice, in T. Frangsmyr (ed.) Les Prix Nobel: The Nobel Prizes 2002, 449-489, Nobel Found, Stockholm
Kahneman D., Tversky A. (1973) On the psychology of prediction, Psychological Review, 80(4), 237-251
Kahneman D., Tversky A. (1996) On the reality of cognitive illusions. A reply to Gigerenzer’s critique, Psychological Review, 103, 582-591
Kahneman D., Tversky A. (1972) Subjective probability: a judgment of representativeness, Cognitive Psychology, 3, 430-454
Katsikopoulos K.V., Gigerenzer G. (2012) Behavioral operations management: a blind spot and a research program, Journal of Supply Chain Management, in press
Kelman M.G. (2011) The heuristic debate, Oxford University Press, New York, NY
Kruglanski A.W., Gigerenzer G. (2011) Intuitive and deliberate judgements are based on common principles, Psychological Review, 118(1), 97-109
Levinthal D.A. (2011) A behavioral approach to strategy – What’s the alternative? Strategic Management Journal, 32(13), 1517-1523
Manimala M. (1992) Entrepreneurial heuristics: a comparison between high PI (Pioneering-Innovative) and low PI ventures, Journal of Business Venturing, 7(6), 477-504
March J.G. (1994) A primer on decision making. How decisions happen, The Free Press, New York.
Marchini I. (1995) L’imprenditorialità manageriale, Piccola Impresa / Small Business, 1, 3-12
Miller G.A. (1956) The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information, Psychological Review, 63, 81-97
Musgrave A. (1974) Logical versus historical theories of confirmation, British Journal of Philosophy of Science, 25, 1-23
Nelson R.R., Winter S.G. (1982) An evolutionary theory of economic change, BelknapHarvard University Press, Cambridge MA
Newell A., Simon H.A. (1972) Human problem solving, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs
Paoli M. (2006) Management della complessità, complessità del management, Franco Angeli, Milano
Parikh J. (1994) Intuition: the new frontier of management, Blackwell Business, Oxford
Piattelli-Palmarini M. (2005) Psicologia ed economia delle scelte. Quattro lezioni al Collegio di Francia, Codice Editore, Torino
Savage L.J. (1954) The foundation of statistics, New York, Dover, 2nd edition
Simon H.A. (1955) A behavioral model of rational choice, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 69, 99-118
Simon H.A. (1967) The logic of heuristic decision making, in N. Rescher (ed.) The logic of decision and action, Pittsburg, The University of Pittsburg, 1-20
Simon H.A. (1990) Invariants of human behavior, Annual Review of Psychology, 41, 1-19
Stoelhorst J.W. (2007) The Naturalist View of Universal Darwinism: An Application to the Evolutionary Theory of the Firm, in G.M. Hodgson (ed.) The Evolution of Economic Institutions: A Critical Reader. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 233-251
Strack F., Martin L.L., Stepper S. (1988) Inhibiting and facilitating condition of facial expressions: a non-obtrusive test of the facial feedback hypothesis, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 768-777
Switzer F.S., Sniezek J.A. (1991) Judgement processes in motivation: anchoring and adjustment effects on judgment and behavior, Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 49(2), 208-229
Tomasello M. (2009) Why we cooperate, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Tversky A., Kahneman D. (1971) Belief in the law of small numbers, Psychological Bulletin, 76(2), 105-110
Tversky A., Kahneman D. (1974) Judgement under uncertainty: heuristics and biases, Science, 185, 1124-1131
Varaldo R., Dalli D., Resciniti R. (2006) Marketing-non-marketing all’italiana: virtù, limiti e prospettive, Congresso Internazionale “Le Tendenze del Marketing”, Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia, 20-21 gennaio
Wilson TD., Schooler J.W. (1991) Thinking too much: introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(2), 181-192
Wübben M., von Wangenheim F. (2008) Instant customer base analysis: managerial heuristics often “get it right”, Journal of Marketing, 72, 82-93
Yin R.K. (1984) Case study research. Design and methods, Sage, Thousand Oaks
Zollo M., Reuer J.J., Singh H. (2002) Interrogational routines and performance in strategic alliances, Organization Science, 13(6), 701-713
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