Breadth/Depth Balance; Modelling Managerial Decision-Making under Uncertainty with a Cognitive-Behavioral Approach

The present research aims to develop the theoretical framework necessary to apply cognitive-behavioral approaches to decision-making as one of the crucial functions of managers in organizations through creating empirical evidence in managerial decision-making patterns under conditions of uncertainty. According to the cognitive-behavioral approach in this study, a behavioral task of decision-making under uncertainty is used in the Breadth/Depth balance framework. Sixty-two people (33 women) in two groups of subjects, including people with professional management experience (29) and people without management experience (31 people) have undertaken the task. Modeling the data obtained from the behavioral test using the linear regression method showed that the modeling using power models describes the data better than the linear model in both groups. In addition, examining the managerial decision-making pattern in the conditions of uncertainty using the Wilcoxon statistical test did not show any significant difference between managers and non-managers. The results show no significant difference between managers and non-managers in the Breadth/Depth where both groups tend to full breadth in low-capacity conditions, and as the capacity increases, they transit to more depth. Therefore, the trade-off can be considered a cognitive heuristic, due to which people show close to optimal behavior. Further efforts to improve the quality of managerial decision-making, especially in the Breadth/Depth frameworks formulated with the balance of breadth/depth, should be focused on analysis and intervention in essential cognitive functions.