出版社：Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences Slovak Academy of Sciences, Institute of Social Sciences, Ko拧ice
摘要：Prior entrepreneurship research shows that individuals often possess biased expectations regarding their chances of success in the market compared to objective reality,as well as to their success and profitability compared to their peers.This distorted,biased view on one's chances of success is referred to as overconfidence.The present study addresses the effect of overconfidence on corporate decision-making with regard to the methodology used in economic and psychological studies.Current research provides contradictory and inconclusive results about the effect of overconfidence on various Chief Executive Officers'decisions and profitability.In this study,I try to explain this inconclusiveness by outlining some of the most important methodological issues in the overconfidence research.In psychological literature,there is a wide consensus among researchers about the robustness of overconfidence in human reasoning.This cognitive bias has been demonstrated in many populations and work domains;like clinical psychologists,drivers,financial analysts,investors,stock market specialists,statisticians,basketball players,or managers.In the literature,overconfidence appears mainly in three different constructs – calibration of probabilities,overestimation,and overplacement.The calibration of probabilities is measured by comparing individuals'subjective probability judgments with the real objective probability.Overestimation is based on comparing individuals'performance in a particular task with their belief about how they will perform or how they performed.Finally,overplacement is measured by comparing individuals'belief about their own performance with the belief about the performance of other individuals.According to these three constructs,overconfidence can be defined as a systematic tendency to overestimate one's own ability to make accurate forecasts,or as an overestimation of one's own performance,or knowledge,compared to his/her actual performance,or others'knowledge.In recent decades,authors from economic disciplines started to omit the direct measurement of overconfidence and instead they have often searched for various indirect variables that could serve as proxies for overconfidence;like holding options beyond rational thresholds,purchasing stocks of one's own company despite the high exposure to risk,or chief executive officers'press portrayals.Additionally,the effect of overconfidence has started to be linked and sometimes confused with other similar concepts like optimism or illusion of control.Authors often use findings from multiple different constructs as a basis for their hypotheses about the effect of overconfidence in corporate decision-making.Moreover,they often use different measurement tools or other proxies for examining overconfidence compared to the previous studies they reported.This confusion of different forms of overconfidence together with different operationalizations causes difficulty in integrating knowledge about particular overconfidence constructs.
