OB Research Seminar - Shenghua Luan, Chinese Academy of Science

Heuristics are simple rules that help people solve problems and make decisions. Smart heuristics are heuristics applied in situations where they perform equally well or better than alternative models or strategies. In this talk, I will first outline the major types of heuristics, such as tallying and fast-and-frugal trees, inspected in the smart heuristics research program and demonstrate how and why they can be smart. I will then use several studies to illustrate how smart heuristics can be studied in the real world as well as in laboratory. I aim to achieve two goals with this presentation: to address common prejudices against heuristics held by many in business research and teaching, and to provide a short exposition to those interested in learning how research in smart heuristics is typically done. Smart heuristics are a reminder that despite the preached superiority of “rational” and complex models, simple rules derived from human experience and built on our core cognitive capacities can still be the best solutions in this increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world.