How Confirmation Bias Influences Risk and Contingency Management: Lessons From Global Leaders' Responses to the 2020 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Abundant research has documented the negative effects of confirmatory bias in a broad range of managerial decision-making contexts. However, insufficient research has been conducted on the effect of confirmatory bias on risk and contingency management. This article addresses the research gap by examining how confirmatory bias may affect global leaders’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a comprehensive literature review of prior research and empirical evidence, the authors illustrate the relationship between confirmatory bias and organizational performance in disaster management and identify several important mediators and moderators, which influence the relationship between confirmatory bias and the performance of human collectives in disaster management.