ABSTRACT
This article reports on a study that is part of a larger project on how Business intelligence (BI) can effectively support a range of decisions made by different decision-makers through the lens of behavioural economics. This study examines one cognitive bias, the anchoring effect. A laboratory experiment was conducted where participants used a BI system to make a forecast. Two anchors with the same value were presented; a spurious anchor and a plausible anchor. We were interested if the use of a BI system would mitigate the negative consequences of the anchoring effect. Our results show BI system use mitigates the effect of a spurious anchor, but not a plausible anchor. That is, despite the significant expenditure on BI, decision-makers can still be subject to major biases and make less rational decisions. This study indicates that cognitive bias is an important topic for BI supported decision makingresearch and practice.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.