Behavioural Business: The Psychology of Decisions in Economic, Business and Policy Contexts

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the world has fundamentally shifted due to the impacts of digitalisation and globalisation. This resulted in greater resources and information available, which has created a world that is wealthier, more educated, longer living, and less hungry than any other time in history. Despite the benefits that digitalisation and globalisation have generated, there have been challenges for individuals who are now (i) processing more and increasingly complex information from many different sources, (ii) interacting in more diverse and expansive networks and (iii) contending with the fact that decisions are more visible and therefore have far-reaching implications and repercussions. Businesses and policymakers are similarly affected by the complexities of modern life. Making “good” decisions is complicated. One of the ways to solve these complex problems in the twenty-first century is to understand how individuals and groups behave.

Behavioural business, in this book, is proposed as an engaged scholarship that brings the social and business disciplinary habits and world-lenses together to solve the complex business and societal puzzles that the world faces. Behavioural business as an engaged scholarship seeks to study individual humans’ activities and their resulting consequences in response to external and internal stimuli within a business or an organisational context and the psychological mechanisms that explain these responses. Behavioural business as a new area of scholarship is broad and emerging, and, as such, the chapters in this book provide a first glimpse into what it entrails.