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IJPDLM 40,10

Debiasing the supplier selection decision: a taxonomy and conceptualization

Lutz Kaufmann
WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management, Koblenz, Germany

792
Received July 2009 Revised June 2010 Accepted June 2010

Craig R. Carter
WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management, Koblenz, Germany and Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA, and

Christian Buhrmann
WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management, Koblenz, Germany
Abstract
Purpose The authors perform a large-scale review of debiasing literature with the purpose of deriving a mutually exclusive and exhaustive debiasing taxonomy. This taxonomy is used to conceptualize debiasing activities in the supplier selection process. For each supplier selection-debiasing construct, scale items are proposed. Design/methodology/approach A systematic classication approach was used to build a debiasing taxonomy, combined with a Q-methodology. Findings Based on the developed and externally validated debiasing taxonomy, ve debiasing activities for the supplier selection context are derived. The conceptual investigation of these supplier selection-oriented debiasing measures helps both researchers and supply managers to gain a better understanding of debiasing mechanisms and to effectively further improve the supplier selection process by integrating behavioral aspects. Originality/value This research extends the taxonomy of decision biases developed by Carter, Kaufmann, and Michel, by systematically analyzing strategies to debias the decision-making process. The highly fragmented research landscape on debiasing was inventoried and structured. As a result, a debiasing taxonomy was created that extracted ve main debiasing categories. These were then conceptualized within the context of the supplier selection process. In doing so, debiasing literature from different research streams such as economics, psychology, and behavioral and strategic decision making was systematically integrated into the eld of supply management. Proposed scale items allow for empirical investigation as a next step in the development of the nascent eld of behavioral supply management. Keywords Supplier evolution, Decision making Paper type Literature review

International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management Vol. 40 No. 10, 2010 pp. 792-821 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0960-0035 DOI 10.1108/09600031011093214

Introduction Behavioral supply management (BSM) has recently emerged as a research stream in the eld of supply chain management. Carter et al. (2007, p. 634) dene BSM as the study of how judgment in supply management decision-making deviates from the assumptions of homo economicus and introduce a taxonomy of judgment and decision-making biases. Examples for negative bias effects are the disregard of alternatives, acceptance of a satiscing (Simon, 1957, p. 204) rather than an optimal supplier selection, an overly

optimistic or overly pessimistic evaluation of event probabilities or a generally erroneous selection outcome assessment (Carter et al., 2007, p. 634). While such biases are a key pillar in this research stream, scholars continue to see a pressing need to investigate and develop decision-aiding techniques that help to debias decision making through the elimination or at least mitigation of judgment and decision biases (Arkes, 1991; Hodgkinson et al., 2002; Kaufmann et al., 2009; Larrick, 2004). Kaufmann et al. (2009) demonstrate the ubiquity and implications of decision biases in the supplier selection process, but do not examine how such biases might be mitigated. The state of extant debiasing research lead Arkes (1991, p. 496) to conclude that it is a desultory catalog of techniques that work, techniques that do not work, and techniques that work on some tasks but not others, a situation which has not changed since (Larrick, 2004). Not only is the foundational literature highly fragmented, but also insights from it have not been sufciently incorporated into the eld of supply management (Kaufmann et al., 2009). The purpose of this paper is therefore twofold: rst, to review and categorize the debiasing literature and second, to transfer those ndings into the supply management eld. A logical place to start transferring generic debiasing ndings into the supply management eld is supplier selection decision making. The selection of suppliers is traditionally a key task and a central research topic in the supply management domain (Choi and Hartley, 1996; Huang and Keskar, 2007; Weber et al., 1991). A major part of supplier selection research investigates decision-making methods and supporting tools for the selection of suppliers and treats this topic as a mathematical optimization problem (Chan, 2003; Cook, 1992; De Boer et al., 2001; Karpak et al., 1999; Liu et al., 2000; Rosenthal et al., 1995). However, the nature of supplier selection decisions also makes them a particularly fruitful research area for BSM, because individuals confronted with complex and dynamic decision-making situations, such as supplier selection, adopt a variety of cognitive heuristics which add vulnerability to judgment and decision biases (Carter et al., 2007; Das and Teng, 1999; Hodgkinson et al., 2002; Kaufmann et al., 2009; Schwenk, 1995). This can lead to negative effects (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974), such as the disregard of alternatives, acceptance of a satiscing (satiscing described by Simon, 1957, p. 205, as the replacement of the maximizing goal through a good enough focus ignoring potential alternatives of action) rather than an optimal solution (Carter et al., 2007). Another contribution of this paper is therefore to not only transfer ndings from the general debiasing literature to the specic supplier selection context, but also to guide future BSM research with initial concepts for developing scales which can be used in further empirical investigations. This paper thus addresses the following two research questions: RQ1. How can the generic debiasing measures investigated in the extant literature be logically structured? RQ2. How can debiasing measures be conceptualized and operationalized within the specic context of the supplier selection decision-making process? The answers to these research questions will build on the decision bias taxonomy recently introduced in IJPDLM by Carter et al. (2007) a taxonomy of the biases that can enter the decision-making process of supply managers by developing a complementary taxonomy of debiasing approaches that supply managers can use to at least partially mitigate potential decision-making biases. Our study also extends

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debiasing research in supply management, and helps to advance the eld of BSM by integrating insights from economics, psychology and behavioral decision making. In the next section, we describe the papers methodological approach. This is followed by a comprehensive literature review of debiasing studies and the subsequent introduction of a generic debiasing taxonomy. Next, we present the results of a Q-methodology that was used to validate the derived debiasing categories. Afterwards, we describe the ve debiasing categories in detail which will then be conceptualized specically within context of supplier selection. This conceptualization leads to a proposal for scale items that may serve as starting points to develop measurement scales. In the nal section of the paper, we discuss implications for future research. Research approach In the development of a new stream of research, like BSM, classications play an important role in creating a midrange theory which may ultimately lead to the development of a comprehensive theory (Bunn, 1993). For the further development of debiasing theory, it is necessary to derive a debiasing categorization from this highly fragmented body of research. Available classication schemes (Arkes, 1991; Fischhoff, 1982; Larrick, 2004) are not mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. In addition, the classications often lack a systematic methodological approach in deriving the categories. For this reason a generic debiasing taxonomy will be derived in this paper in order to lay the foundation for deriving supplier selection-specic debiasing constructs. To accomplish this, we: . inventoried debiasing measures from the extant literature and identied underlying distinguishing characteristics; . derived a generic debiasing categorization and described single debiasing categories based on the identied studies and characteristics; . validated the derived debiasing categorization by applying a Q-methodology to a set of domain experts; . back-linked the derived single debiasing categories to the single categories of biases according to the bias taxonomy developed by Carter et al. (2007); and . conceptualized specic debiasing categories for the supplier selection context and suggested potential scale items for their measurement. Debiasing: a review of the literature A systematic review of the literature revealed a total of 62 articles investigating 76 in large part differently named debiasing measures. These studies were identied through keyword searches in the ABI/Inform and EBSCOhostw databases. Search conditions included the behavioral terms: bias, debias, heuristic, decision anomaly, mitigation strategy, corrective measure, benecial decision rule, compensatory decision, and non-compensatory decision. Each of the identied studies is listed in Table I, along with a description of the key ndings for the debiasing measures/mitigation strategies. Most studies have a rather narrow focus and address one specic debiasing measure. Furthermore, the majority of debiasing research relies upon laboratory experiments as the methodological approach for collecting data. An examination of the debiasing measures suggests that there are several similarities, and possible overlap, among many of them, despite being assigned different names by different researchers. In addition,

Author(s) (year) Multiple Control illusion Multiple Output evaluation Prediction error Control illusion Multiple Persistence Control illusion Conceptual study Three experiments (184, 151, and 128) One experiment (99) Two experiments (73 and 200) One experiment (96) One experiment (88) One experiment (170) Conceptual study Conceptual study

Debiasing measures/key ndings

Addressed bias category (Carter et al., 2007)

Study type (sample size, n)

Miller (1956)

Spetzler and Stael Von Holstein (1975)

Herbert and Estes (1977)

Slovic and Fischhoff (1977)

Cosier (1978)

Koriat et al. (1980)

Schwenk and Cosier (1980)

Anderson (1982)

Bazerman and Neale (1982)

Fischhoff (1982)

Multiple Output evaluation

Conceptual study Conceptual study (continued)

Restructuring a task to a sequence of several absolute judgments can help to increase the accuracy of judgments Further structuring can help to reduce or eliminate biases caused by representativeness heuristic A corporate devils advocate for important decisions is proposed to uncover potential shortcomings The hindsight effect could be reduced by forcing subjects to consider how a certain research could have turned out differently Devils advocate approach can increase prediction accuracy in uncertain environments Listing contradicting reasons why the preferred answer might be wrong can reduce overcondence An objective, non-emotional devils advocate approach is suggested as potential aid for making decisions under uncertainty Considering alternative scenarios can reduce perseverance bias Negotiators with awareness of their opponents cognitive perspective are expected to reach more reasonable assessments Informing decision maker of over-estimation tendency can reduce this effect Restructuring a task helps to use existing cognitive skills to the best advantage Convincing oneself that there is an alternative outcome can be effective against hindsight bias

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Table I. Studies on debiasing measures

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Author(s) (year) Multiple Reference point Persistence and output evaluation Multiple Judgmental biases Judgmental biases Control illusion Availability cognition Control illusion Output evaluation and conrmatory Strategy-based, association-based and psychophysically based errors Conceptual study

Fischhoff and Training is suggested in order to achieve Beyth-Marom (1983) better inferences and to achieve better decisions Friedlander and Debiasing effect of instructions how to avoid Phillips (1984) the anchor bias is mixed and related to the condence of the decision maker Lord et al. (1984) Considering the opposite strategy showed a corrective debiasing effect in two experiments Schwenk (1984) Devils advocate procedure can help to generate more strategic alternatives and inuences positively the analysis Cosier and Rechner Devils advocate was identied as an effective (1985) debiasing approach, especially in risky decision environments Hoch (1985) Generating con reasons can help to improve the prediction accuracy Anderson and Counterexplanation was tested successfully as Sechler (1986) a debiasing method Dube-Rioux and Generating additional causes helps to reduce Russo (1988) availability bias Heiman (1990) Consideration of alternative explanations has an effect on the likelihood assessment during the decision-making process Arkes (1991) Considering the opposite is seen as a potential strategy to mitigate association-based biases (e.g. hindsight and overcondence) A segregating approach can have a debiasing effect concerning the willingness to make purchases Training is expected to mitigate certain judgment errors

Table I. Addressed bias category (Carter et al., 2007) Study type (sample size, n) One experiment (73) Two experiments (120 and 30) One experiment (80) Two experiments (120 and 30) One experiment (260) Three experiments (26, 43, and 17) Conceptual study and one experiment (80) Two experiments (73 and 148) Conceptual study (continued)

IJPDLM 40,10

Debiasing measures/key ndings

Author(s) (year) Control illusion, persistence, and availability cognition

Debiasing measures/key ndings

Addressed bias category (Carter et al., 2007)

Study type (sample size, n) Two experiments (50 and 60)

Buyukkurt and Buyukkurt (1991)

Koehler (1991) Koonce (1992) Multiple Presentation and commitment Reference point Multiple No category available Output evaluation Multiple judgmental biases (e.g. control illusion)

Control illusion Presentation

Conceptual study Two experiments (34 and 53) Conceptual study Conceptual study Two experiments (40 and 44) One experiment (48) Two experiments (96 and 99) One experiment (92) Three experiments (326, 568, and 115) (continued)

Mowen and Gaeth (1992) Mowen and Gaeth (1992) Chapman and Johnson (1994) Coupey (1994)

Higgins and Liberman (1994) Lowe and Reckers (1994) Hirt and Markman (1995)

The application of a mental decomposition process is suggested to reduce certain biases, but the results were not statistically signicant Devils advocate approach is suggested as a debiasing approach, but not statistically signicant results Counterexplanation can reduce overcondence The primacy order effect can be reduced by performing counterexplanation activities Creating bias awareness is suggested as a rst step to improve decision-making process Task structuring is suggested to reduce framing bias and sunk cost effects The consideration of features unlike the anchor can help to reduce the anchor bias Restructuring can have a positive impact on the necessary cognitive effort for a task Cognitive awareness plays an important role in reducing memory errors Drawing attention to alternative outcomes can successfully reduce the hindsight bias Considering alternative outcomes can be used as a debiasing strategy

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Table I.

798

Author(s) (year) Output evaluation Multiple Output evaluation

Kennedy (1995)

Valacich and Schwenk (1995) Babcock and Loewenstein (1997)

Hammond et al. (1998) Reference point Conrmatory Persistence

Stapel et al. (1998)

Chapman and Johnson (1999)

Galinsky and Moskowitz (2000) Mussweiler et al. (2000)

Table I. Addressed bias category (Carter et al., 2007) Study type (sample size, n) Three experiments (161, 322, and 143) One experiment (220) Two experiments (160 and 188) Conceptual study Conceptual study Conceptual study Conceptual study Three experiments (98, 163, and 72) Reference point No category available Reference point Five experiments (24, 172, 50, 234, and 234) Three experiments (37, 85, and 40) Two experiments (60 and 31) Reference point, persistence, commitment, conrmatory, presentation, and availability Multiple (continued)

IJPDLM 40,10

Debiasing measures/key ndings

Counterexplanation was identied as a promising debiasing strategy Devils advocate procedure can help to improve decision quality Taking opponents perspective by trying to argue his case as convincingly as possible can reduce self-serving bias Informing decision makers about the existence of the self-serving bias can help to make predictions more realistic Viewing a problem from different perspectives via a perspective shift can help to reduce the anchor bias Getting a respected person to play devils advocate is suggested to reduce the conrmation bias Identifying other options as an alternative can help to reduce the status quo bias The creation of decision bias awareness is suggested as the most important way to counteract decision biases Blatantly warned subjects were able to identify sources of biases in contrast to only conditionally warned subjects Considering reasons or features different/ alternative from the anchor can reduce or eliminate the anchoring effect Perspective taking can successfully diminish the stereotype bias Anchor bias can be reduced based on the consider the opposite strategy by addressing the underlying mechanisms

Author(s) (year) Control illusion Base rate Presentation One experiment (135) One experiment (84)

Debiasing measures/key ndings

Addressed bias category (Carter et al., 2007)

Study type (sample size, n)

Renner and Renner (2001) Ashton and Kennedy (2002)

Endowment effect, commitment, persistence bias, control illusion, and availability Outcome evaluation

Conceptual study One experiment (122)

Control illusion Output evaluation Conrmatory Control illusion Conrmatory Multiple

Conceptual study and math modeling Two experiments (56 and 79) One experiment (201) Three experiments (59, 86, and 55) Three experiments (59, 86, and 55) Conceptual study

Debiasing training can reduce overcondence and increases judgment accuracy Taking a different perspective by a simple self-review can eliminate recency bias Decomposing the task into subtasks, reorganizing input data or changing the response mode can help to mitigate framing bias Baker and Nofsinger Recognizing and understanding a bias is the (2002) rst step to avoid it Clarkson et al. (2002) A perspective shift can help to reduce the outcome effect (similar to looking away and then looking back at an optical illusion) Informing decision makers about the outcome effect can be an effective instruction to avoid this bias Clemen and Training is suggested as an promising Lichtendahl (2002) debiasing technique Sanna et al. (2002) The debiasing effect of generating counterfactual thoughts is inuenced by the perceived task difculty Schulz-Hardt et al. A dissenting opinion by a devils advocate (2002) (at the begin) reduce or prevent biased information search Srivastava and Decomposing can reduce the estimation error Raghubir (2002) Kray and Galinsky Counterfactual thoughts increase the search (2003) for disconrmatory information. This can lead to a higher decision accuracy Lovallo and Self-reviewing by taking an outside view can Kahneman (2003) help to increase accuracy and objectivity of estimations (continued)

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Table I.

800

Author(s) (year) Output evaluation

Sanna and Schwarz The debiasing effect of generating alternatives (2003) may be reduced if people recognize that it is difcult to nd reasons for an alternate outcome Bentz et al. (2004) The consider-an-alternative debiasing procedure successfully reduced judgmental bias associated with anxiety Bolger and OnkalTraining in probalisitc forecasting can Atay (2004) improve judgment Galinsky and Ku Perspective taking can reduce prejudice when (2004) individuals have a high self-esteem Hirt et al. (2004) Considering alternatives can be seen as a promising debiasing technique in terms of judgmental biases, but if the consideration of alternatives becomes too difcult this debiasing technique can backre and amplify the bias Larrick (2004) Considering contrary evidence by using a consider the opposite strategy can help to improve decision making Mcgraw et al. (2004) Informing subjects about overcondence in prediction-reduced overcondence Sanna and Schwarz Considering thoughts that imply failure can (2004) reduce the planning fallacy Bazerman (2005) Taking an outside view is suggested as an debiasing method Dunn et al. (2005) Formulating counterexplanation can be an effective-debiasing technique Cognitive awareness concerning semantic inconsistencies is the starting point for debiasing; training can mitigate certain biases Judgmental bias Multiple No category available Judgmental biases (e.g. control illusion) Multiple Control illusion Control illusion Multiple Multiple Judgmental bias

Table I. Addressed bias category (Carter et al., 2007) Study type (sample size, n) Two experiments (53 and 94) One experiment (476) One experiment (139) Two experiments (67 and 45) One experiment (240) Conceptual study Two experiments (45 and 42) One experiment (227) Conceptual study Conceptual study, math modeling, two experiments (38 and 46) (continued)

IJPDLM 40,10

Debiasing measures/key ndings

Author(s) (year) Reference point

Debiasing measures/key ndings

Addressed bias category (Carter et al., 2007)

Study type (sample size, n) Two experiments (107 and 48)

Epley and Gilovich (2005)

Control illusion No category available

Four experiments (165, 62, 287, and 80) Two experiments (71 and 121)

Commitment Multiple

Conceptual study Conceptual and case study

Searching for reasons why the anchor could be wrong can help to reduce the anchor bias Forewarning of the anchor effect can be an effective-debiasing method if the decision maker understands the underlying process Put yourself in the shoes of could be Faro and Rottenstreich (2006) identied as a debiasing method in order to improve predictions Kardes et al. (2006) Generating the criteria before receiving a product description and evaluating criteria before forming an overall evaluation of a product can lead to more appropriate evaluations Lovallo and Sibony Demanding alternatives can calibrate the level (2006) of managers risk aversion Kaufmann et al. Expanding the decision makers bound of (2009) rationality by decomposing

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Table I.

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Table I displays which categories of biases were addressed; the nine bias categories developed by Carter et al. (2007) were used for consistency to label the biases addressed in each of those 62 studies. Table I displays a summary of this analysis. Five debiasing categories In the next step, debiasing categories are derived based on the inventoried studies and the identied specic characteristics of the debiasing measures. The debiasing measures can be categorized according to the following criteria: . A debiasing method can be directed or applied to one specic decision or it can be unspecic in the sense that it can be applied to decision-making practice in general. . The minimum number of people required to apply a mitigation strategy is either one, or in the case of a dissent-based debiasing focus, more than one (Figure 1). . The debiasing focus referring to the key lever addressed by the debiasing measures. Based on the ndings in the inventoried studies and these criteria, ve generic debiasing categories can be differentiated, as shown in Figure 1. Each of the 76 debiasing tactics can be assigned to one of these ve categories. The categories will be described next, before the derived debiasing categorization is qualitatively validated using a Q-methodology. Description of the debiasing categories Decomposing/restructuring Studies in this category focus on the decision structure. The decision process and the related information are restructured, decomposed or segregated to align the decision task with decision makers cognitive capabilities (Ashton and Kennedy, 2002, p. 223). For example, restructuring the decision task can signicantly inuence the selection kkurt (1991) and deployment of heuristics (Coupey, 1994). Also, Buyukkurt and Buyu showed that decomposition can reduce estimation errors. Decomposing/restructuring

802

Decision

Specificity

Decision specific More than one

Decision unspecific

Minimum number of required persons

One

One

Debiasing focus

Structure

Perspective

Outcome

Dissent

Figure 1. Overview of debiasing categories

Context know-how General bias awareness

Debiasing category

Decomposing/ restructuring

Put yourself in the shoes of

Draw attention to alt. Outcome

Devils advocate

is a direct measure which can only be applied in the context of a specic decision with concrete information. It can be conducted alone or in a team. Put yourself in the shoes of The objective of activities in this second category is to initiate or to achieve a perspective shift of the decision maker in order to view the decision situation through the eyes of another involved party. This approach becomes especially relevant in negotiations during which it is useful to take the other partys cognitive perspective. For example, Bazerman and Neale (1982) nd that negotiators with an awareness of their opponents cognitive perspective were able to make better predictions with regard to the actual chance that their nal offer will be accepted. Faro and Rottenstreich (2006) found that the simple procedure of making predictions of what other parties would do can reduce mispredictions. While perspective shifts can be useful in general, actually applying a perspective shift can only be done in a specic decision situation. A concrete perspective shift is only possible during the actual decision process with known decision parameters and negotiation partners. In contrast to the implicit debiasing effect of the later described creating a general bias awareness, the put yourself in the shoes of approach has an explicit and direct debiasing effect. It can be conducted alone but also in a group using, for example, a brainstorming approach. Drawing attention to alternative outcomes The third derived category focuses on the potential decision outcome. By directing the attention to alternative outcomes and considering alternative explanations (Epley and Gilovich, 2005; Kray and Galinsky, 2003; Mussweiler et al., 2000), the cognitive inertia can be broken and thereby the vulnerability for decision biases can be reduced (Hirt et al., 2004). Generating counterexplanations and thinking through contradictory reasons represents a broader application of the consider the opposite strategy (Koriat et al., 1980; Lord et al., 1984; Slovic and Fischhoff, 1977). The objective of this debiasing approach is to draw attention to evidence/scenarios that would not have been considered otherwise because decision makers tend to generate only supportive hypotheses and explanations (Larrick, 2004; Mussweiler et al., 2000). Drawing attention to alternative outcomes can only be accomplished in the context of a specic decision; it is an explicit debiasing effort. There is no minimum number of people required to conduct such debiasing measures in principle, it can be conducted by the decision maker alone. Devils advocate The fourth debiasing category focuses on the dissent from a decision maker. In most cases, the dissent from the decision maker is raised by a second party who argues against the position of the decision maker(s). The devils advocate represents a formalized dissent with the goal of identifying inadequacies and uncovering biases (Herbert and Estes, 1977). Nevertheless, the devils advocate has to be non-emotional (Schwenk and Cosier, 1980) in order to reduce bias in the decision process. Studies have shown that a dissenting opinion voiced by a devils advocate from early on in a decision process can reduce or even prevent a biased information search (Schulz-Hardt et al., 2002). Especially, in the context of strategic decisions and highly

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uncertain outcomes, the devils advocate approach has proven to be highly effective (Cosier, 1978). With the help of the devils advocate, it is possible to discover new and better solutions (Valacich and Schwenk, 1995). This approach is always related to a specic decision. General bias awareness The approach of creating general bias awareness can be interpreted as a debiasing meta-strategy. Studies in this category focus on the decision (context) know-how of the decision maker. The vulnerability towards biases is expected to be reduced through an improved understanding of the underlying decision mechanisms. For example, Babcock and Loewenstein (1997) found that after informing people about the existence of a certain bias, overall judgment quality improved. Nevertheless, simply knowing that a bias has an inuence on the decision-making process is not sufcient to completely avoid its occurrence (Mowen and Gaeth, 1992). The awareness of certain biases should be viewed as a rst step for improving the decision-making process (Mowen and Gaeth, 1992). General bias awareness can be created by the decision maker herself, e.g. by reading about biases or via specic training. The process of generating bias awareness takes place in the run up to the actual decision-making process. When a decision maker is aware of the functionality of certain biases, this debiasing approach can provide a permanent debiasing effect. Nevertheless, the approach of creating a general bias awareness is an indirect one, with a later, ongoing, implicit effect in specic decision situations. A summary of the debiasing categories and an overview of the corresponding assigned debiasing studies are shown in Table II. In the next step, a Q-methodology will be conducted to assess the reliability of these categories. Q-methodology The Q-methodology represents a scientic and systematic categorization approach which was used to examine the validity and reliability of the above debiasing categories. The Q-methodology unites the strengths of the qualitative and the quantitative research tradition (Amin, 2000, p. 410). It was developed by Stephenson (1935) to provide a systematic approach to study subjectivity (Akhtar-Danesh et al., 2008; Stephenson, 1953). The objective of the Q-methodology is to identify different patterns of thought (Valenta and Wigger, 1997). This methodology was also employed for deriving the taxonomy of biases in Carter et al. (2007). The Q-methodology approach can be divided into three main steps which will be described in this section in more detail as they pertain to the research at hand: (1) Creation of the Q-set. The Q-set consists of a list of meaningful statements about the specic topic (Amin, 2000). In this research project, the Q-set consists of statements from the 62 reviewed debiasing articles. A summary statement for each of the 76 ndings for debiasing measures from those 62 articles was printed on a separate card. Each card was randomly assigned a number. First, a pilot study with four participants was conducted to check the statements for clarity and relevance (Amin, 2000). As a result, two statements of the Q-set were rewritten. (2) Assembling the P-set. The P-set consists of participants who are asked to allocate the statements to the pre-derived categories (McKeown and Thomas, 1988).

804

Debiasing category Aligning task and cognitive capabilities, structuring input data, and splitting the task into subtasks

Characteristics of debiasing category

Identied sources in extant literature

Decomposing and restructuring

Put yourself in the shoes of

Drawing attention to alternative outcomes

Miller (1956), Spetzler and Stael Von Holstein (1975), Fischhoff (1982), Arkes (1991), Buyukkurt and Buyukkurt (1991), Mowen and Gaeth (1992), Coupey (1994), Ashton and Kennedy (2002), Srivastava and Raghubir (2002), Kardes et al. (2006) and Kaufmann et al. (2009) Perspective shifting and taking opponents perspective Bazerman and Neale (1982), Babcock and Loewenstein (1997), Hammond et al. (1998), Galinsky and Moskowitz (2000), Ashton and Kennedy (2002), Clarkson et al. (2002), Lovallo and Kahneman (2003), Galinsky and Ku (2004), Bazerman (2005) and Faro and Rottenstreich (2006) Considering counterexplanations, focusing on additional Slovic and Fischhoff (1977), Koriat et al. (1980), Anderson causes, and generating alternative hypotheses (1982), Fischhoff (1982), Lord et al. (1984), Hoch (1985), Anderson and Sechler (1986), Dube-Rioux and Russo (1988), Heiman (1990), Arkes (1991), Koehler (1991), Koonce (1992), Chapman and Johnson (1994), Lowe and Reckers (1994), Hirt and Markman (1995), Kennedy (1995), Hammond et al. (1998), Chapman and Johnson (1999), Mussweiler et al. (2000), Sanna et al. (2002), Kray and Galinsky (2003), Sanna and Schwarz (2003, 2004), Bentz et al. (2004), Hirt et al. (2004), Larrick (2004), Dunn et al. (2005), Epley and Gilovich (2005) and Lovallo and Sibony (2006) (continued)

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Table II. Summary of debiasing categories and the corresponding sources identied in extant literature

806

Debiasing category

Devils advocate

General bias awareness and training

Table II. Characteristics of debiasing category Identied sources in extant literature Dissenting questioning and taking a formalized contrary Herbert and Estes (1977), Cosier (1978), Schwenk and opinion Cosier (1980), Schwenk (1984), Cosier and Rechner (1985), Buyukkurt and Buyukkurt (1991), Valacich and Schwenk (1995), Hammond et al. (1998) and Schulz-Hardt et al. (2002) Creating cognitive awareness, understanding decision Bazerman and Neale (1982), Fischhoff and Beyth-Marom and judgment, and mechanisms (1983), Friedlander and Phillips (1984), Arkes (1991), Mowen and Gaeth (1992), Higgins and Liberman (1994), Babcock and Loewenstein (1997), Hammond et al. (1998), Stapel et al. (1998), Renner and Renner (2001), Baker and Nofsinger (2002), Clarkson et al. (2002), Clemen and Lichtendahl (2002), Bolger and Onkal-Atay (2004), Mcgraw et al. (2004), Dunn et al. (2005) and Epley and Gilovich (2005)

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Participants are not chosen at random but are domain experts familiar with the topic. Only a limited number of participants is necessary (Block, 1961; Brown, 2004), as it is the primary objective of the Q-methodology to examine inter-rater reliability. While only a minimum of two or more researchers (Marques and Mccoll, 2005, p. 442) is required to build the P-set, 16 participants were included in this phase of the research project to provide a broad external base of judgment. In detail, the P-set consisted of six researchers with prior supply management working experience (none of whom were authors in this paper) and ten experienced supply managers. (3) Q-sorting. For this step, the printed cards were given to the 16 members of the P-set. In this research project, a forced Q-sort was applied, where all participants were instructed to allocate each of the 76 cards to the set of pre-dened ve debiasing categories (Brown, 2004). At the beginning of the Q-sorting process, each of these categories was explained in detail and a denition was provided which was permanently visible for the participants. Each participant was instructed to carefully read the denition of the categories and the statements on the cards (Akhtar-Danesh et al., 2008). Furthermore, the researchers ensured that the Q-sort conditions were identical for all participants. The Q-sort took between 40 and 55 minutes for the participants to complete. Finally, all participants completed the Q-sort independently of other members of the P-set (Carter et al., 2007). Q-sorting results In the next step, the reliability of the Q-sort process was analyzed across participants and calculated based on the correspondence between the P-sets sorting and the initial categorization. The reliability was calculated as the percentage of total pairwise matches. This approach has proven advantageous for the minimization of the capitalization on chance agreement among the raters (Carter et al., 2007). The average inter-rater reliability was calculated as the mean of the 76 17 comparisons (16 from the raters and one from authors initial categorization) across the 16 participants. The values ranged from 84.2 to 98.6 percent with a mean of 96.8 percent. In the context of this methodology, the inter-rater reliability can be viewed as being reasonably comparable to Cronbachs coefcient alpha (Cronbach, 1951; Perreault and Leigh, 1989) and can thus be considered to be highly satisfactory. In addition, a test-retest procedure was applied. For this purpose, four randomly chosen participants conducted the Q-sort at two different points in time (Dennis, 1992) with an average inter-rater reliability of 99.3 percent. Overview of debiasing categories vs addressed biases Next, we match the debiasing categories to the specic decision biases that they might mitigate, based on our review of the extant literature. As this paper builds on the work of Carter et al. (2007), the second column of Table III indicates to which category of bias from the Carter et al. taxonomy the single biases belong that were investigated in the debiasing literature which was analyzed here. It is evident that the derived debiasing categories have a broad impact base. Each debiasing category potentially addresses several bias categories. As shown in Table III, the measures from the debiasing

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Debiasing category Commitment Control illusion Presentation Reference point Multiple

a

Decomposing and restructuring

Put yourself in the shoes of Output evaluation Reference point Multiple Availability cognition Commitment Conrmatory Control illusion Perseverance Conrmation bias Overcondence

Drawing attention to alternative outcomes

Table III. Overview of derived debiasing categories and the corresponding addressed biases Addressed bias category (Carter et al., 2007) Bias name in the study Sources Sunk cost effect Representativeness Framing bias Estimation bias Multiple Omission bias Recency bias Overestimation Representativeness Outcome effect Self-serving bias Anchor bias Prejudice Stereotype bias Multiple Availability bias Base rate Control illusion Mowen and Gaeth (1992) Spetzler and Stael Von Holstein (1975) Mowen and Gaeth (1992) and Ashton and Kennedy (2002) Srivastava and Raghubir (2002) Miller (1956), Fischhoff (1982), Arkes (1991), Coupey (1994) and Buyukkurt and Buyukkurt (1991) Kardes et al. (2006) Ashton and Kennedy (2002) Bazerman and Neale (1982) Faro and Rottenstreich (2006) Clarkson et al. (2002) Babcock and Loewenstein (1997) Hammond et al. (1998) Galinsky and Ku (2004) Galinsky and Moskowitz (2000) Lovallo and Kahneman (2003) and Bazerman (2005) Dube-Rioux and Russo (1988) Output evaluation Planning fallacy Hindsight Outcome effect Anderson (1982) and Lord et al. (1984) Arkes (1991) and Kray and Galinsky (2003) Heiman (1990), Koriat et al. (1980), Anderson and Sechler (1986), Arkes (1991), Koehler (1991), Hirt and Markman (1995) and Hirt et al. (2004) Sanna and Schwarz (2004) Slovic and Fischhoff (1977), Fischhoff (1982), Lord et al. (1984), Arkes (1991), Lowe and Reckers (1994), Hirt and Markman (1995), Kennedy (1995), Sanna et al. (2002) and Sanna and Schwarz (2003) Kennedy (1995) (continued)

Debiasing category Presentation Persistence Reference point

a a

Addressed bias category (Carter et al., 2007) Bias name in the study Sources Explanation bias Primacy effect Status quo Anchor bias

Multiple

Devils advocate

Conrmatory Reference point Multiple

a

Multiple Judgmental biases Risk aversion Conrmation bias Prediction error Multiple

General bias awareness and training

Availability cognition Commitment Control illusion

Judgmental biases Familiarity bias Endowment effect Overcondence

Output evaluation Persistence Reference point Multiple

a

Overestimation Representativeness Outcome effect Self-serving bias Status quo bias Anchor bias Multiple Judgmental biases

Anderson and Sechler (1986), Hirt and Markman (1995) and Hirt et al. (2004) Koonce (1992) Hammond et al. (1998) Chapman and Johnson (1994, 1999), Mussweiler et al. (2000) and Epley and Gilovich (2005) Dunn et al. (2005) and Larrick (2004) Hoch (1985), Hirt and Markman (1995) and Bentz et al. (2004) Lovallo and Sibony (2006) Hammond et al. (1998) and Schulz-Hardt et al. (2002) Cosier (1978) Herbert and Estes (1977), Schwenk and Cosier (1980), Schwenk (1984), Buyukkurt and Buyukkurt (1991) and Valacich and Schwenk (1995) Cosier and Rechner (1985) Baker and Nofsinger (2002) Baker and Nofsinger (2002) Renner and Renner (2001), Baker and Nofsinger (2002), Clemen and Lichtendahl (2002) and Mcgraw et al. (2004) Bazerman and Neale (1982) Baker and Nofsinger (2002) Clarkson et al. (2002) Babcock and Loewenstein (1997) Baker and Nofsinger (2002) Friedlander and Phillips (1984) and Epley and Gilovich (2005) Fischhoff and Beyth-Marom (1983), Arkes (1991), Mowen and Gaeth (1992), Stapel et al. (1998) and Bolger and Onkal-Atay (2004) Higgins and Liberman (1994) and Dunn et al. (2005)

Note: No category available according to Carter et al. (2007)

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Table III.

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category drawing attention to alternative outcomes are expected to have the broadest impact and the approaches from the devils advocate category the narrowest. Conceptualizing debiasing constructs for the supplier selection process We next apply the taxonomy of debiasing measures that we have developed to the specic context of the supplier selection decision. Within this specic context, we can relabel the ve categories of the debiasing taxonomy to read: (1) decomposing supplier selection task; (2) taking the suppliers perspective; (3) investigative reviewing of the supplier choice set; (4) dissenting the nal supplier selection decision; and (5) creating general supplier selection bias awareness. The rst specic debiasing construct supplier selection task decomposition is linked to the decomposing/restructuring category of the above generic debiasing taxonomy. This construct involves efforts to adequately align the supplier selection task with the purchasing decision makers cognitive capabilities (Ashton and Kennedy, 2002; Coupey, 1994; Kaufmann et al., 2009; Montgomery, 1983; Selart, 1996). Experimental studies have shown that restructuring and decomposing signicantly inuences the selection and deployment of heuristics (Coupey, 1994). Moreover, Spetzler and Stael Von Holstein (1975, p. 347) contend that biases resulting from representativeness can often be reduced or eliminated by further structuring the problem. Increasingly, supply management decision situations are dynamic and unstructured with decision variables that are often difcult to quantify (Cook, 1992; De Boer et al., 1998). As multiple criteria have to be considered during the supplier selection process (Weber et al., 1991), this group of purchasing decisions is a fertile ground for measures from the decomposing supplier selection task category. In particular, the identication and weighting of decision criteria provide potential for the application of decomposing in order to achieve more appropriate selections (Kardes et al., 2006). In the specic supply management context, Kaufmann et al. (2009, p. 93) propose selective fact/information gathering about supplier performance aspects as a subcategory of decomposing the decision task. As an example of this, the chief purchasing ofcer of a machine tool manufacturer redesigned the selection processes at his organization with the explicit goal of reducing decision bias. Together with the lead buyers from each material group, the relevant decision criteria are determined, and the sourcing team then determines the specications together with R&D, and assigns weights to the selection criteria. Then, the different departments, including R&D, logistics, quality, and production each rate the potential suppliers based upon those criteria, before the heads of these departments make a joint decision in a monthly sourcing committee meeting. Potential scale items that reect the degree of supplier selection task decomposing by a buyer in a specic purchasing decision process (e.g. on a seven-point Likert-type scale anchored with strongly agree versus strongly disagree) could include: (1) I determined a set of relevant decision criteria prior to the supplier selection. (2) Specications were determined before I started the supplier search. (3) I prioritized relevant selection criteria before requesting information from suppliers.

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(4) Weights were assigned to the selection criteria prior to rating suppliers. (5) I structured supplier information in order to evaluate their relevance one after another. (6) I split the selection decision task into smaller pieces. The second construct taking the suppliers perspective is based on the put yourself in the shoes of category of the general debiasing taxonomy. This debiasing construct subsumes activities to view the decision situation and supplier selection decision process through the eyes of each potential supplier. By initializing a perspective shift towards suppliers, the gridlocked thought patterns of the buyer can be broken, which can help to reduce the vulnerability to decision biases (Clarkson et al., 2002; Faro and Rottenstreich, 2006; Galinsky and Moskowitz, 2000). As such, the taking suppliers perspective approach tries to break the inertia by taking the opponents perspective (Babcock and Loewenstein, 1997; Bazerman and Neale, 1982). For example, Bazerman and Neale (1982) have also shown that negotiators are vulnerable to the overestimation bias if they ignore their opponents cognitive perspective and focus too strongly on their own perspective. By taking the suppliers perspective, buyers are expected to make more reasonable estimations and eventually better decisions. The construct in this paper captures whether the buyers attempts to achieve a perspective in fact shift within the context of the supplier selection decision. During a specic supplier selection the buyers perspective shift is reected by the following potential items for a measurement scale for taking the suppliers perspective. During this specic supplier selection, I put myself in the shoes of the supplier in order to: . understand his/her sales approach; . anticipate how s/he would try to inuence my decision; . view our selection process from a different perspective; and . identify potential aws in our purchasing request. The third debiasing construct intensity of investigative review of supplier choice set is based on the derived debiasing category drawing attention to alternative outcomes. This debiasing construct involves efforts to bring additional competing supplier selection scenarios into play and thereby to review the primary outcome. By drawing attention to alternative explanations and alternative outcomes of the supplier selection (Epley and Gilovich, 2005; Kray and Galinsky, 2003; Mussweiler et al., 2000), the cognitive inertia (Hirt et al., 2004) of a buyer can be broken and thereby the vulnerability to decision biases reduced and the quality of the selection process improved. The underlying mechanism behind this approach is to draw attention to evidence/scenarios that would not have been considered otherwise as decision makers in general tend to generate mainly supportive hypotheses and explanations (Larrick, 2004). Initiating this effect in a specic supplier selection context is possible in two ways: (1) the buyer herself can generate contradicting reasons and list potential alternatives; and/or (2) colleagues can do so.

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Potential scale items to measure the review intensity of the supplier choice set as perceived by the buyer could thus include: . Discussions with other colleagues made me take a second look at my supplier ratings. . Consulting with other departments (like R&D, Production, Quality) enriched my perspective. . My decision criteria were constructively reviewed by other colleagues. . Colleagues encouraged me to consider alternative suppliers. . Constructive feedback from my colleagues caused me to re-evaluate my supplier choice. The fourth debiasing construct dissenting the nal supplier selection decision is directly linked to the devils advocate category of the debiasing taxonomy. In contrast to the constructive and investigative review process of the supplier choice set, the debiasing construct dissenting the nal supplier selection decision subsumes activities to take a skeptical perspective concerning the supplier selection decision. At the end of the supplier selection process, a formalized dissent between a promoter of the decision, in this case the buyer, and a dissenter (the devils advocate) can help to reveal potential aws of the planned decision. Simply knowing about an upcoming formalized dissent via a devils advocate is expected to increase the pressure on the buyer to act more thoroughly (Herbert and Estes, 1977). The buyer and the dissenter should generally be on the same hierarchical level to best leverage this debiasing tactic. Potential scale items for this approach are as follows. A colleague: . acted as a devils advocate; . took an opposing view on my choice of decision criteria; . seriously questioned whether I took the right information into consideration during this supplier selection; . argued that the recommended supplier is not the right one; and . claimed that the recommended supplier is not the best available on the market. The fth construct level of general supplier selection bias awareness is linked to the general bias awareness category of the debiasing taxonomy. This construct involves activities to raise the specic awareness that in the context of supplier selection, intuition should be replaced by rational and formalized procedures (Fischhoff and Beyth-Marom, 1983; Kahneman and Tversky, 1982). This can reduce the vulnerability to judgment and decision biases, e.g. the anchor bias adjustments from an initial point of reference or position are not sufcient and lead to an overly optimistic/overly pessimistic evaluation of outcomes or event probabilities (Epley and Gilovich, 2005; Friedlander and Phillips, 1984); control illusion bias the unwarranted consideration of non-representative samples or random events as an essential characteristic of a process which will then lead to an overly optimistic condence in judgment (McGraw et al., 2004); or persistence bias decision makers choose unwarrantedly an alternative or solution only because it has been chosen in the past (Baker and Nofsinger, 2002). Nevertheless, creating supplier selection bias awareness represents a debiasing measure that is not decision specic

and as such can only be a general step towards more debiasing. The pure knowledge about the existence of biases and their mechanisms does not sufciently protect buyers against them (Mowen and Gaeth, 1992), but it can help to identify potential bias traps during a specic supplier selection process and thus lay the foundation for the successful mitigation of the bias. Potential scale items that can measure the perceived level of general supplier selection bias awareness of a buyer are as follows. I am aware that in general: . one should not overrate a rst impression of a supplier because it may not have been representative; . presentation style is less important than substance; . it is better to consider multiple sources to assess the reputation of potential suppliers; . I am supposed to keep looking for weaknesses even if I feel condent that I have found a good supplier; . it is not good to consider single supplier anecdotes because they may not be representative; . my prior statistical training helps me to assess potential suppliers analytically; and . my prior training comprehensively covered the pros and cons of analytical/rational decision making as opposed to intuitive decision making. Research implications This paper has responded to the most recent call for more debiasing research in supply management (Kaufmann et al., 2009) and contributes to literature on BSM in that it complements the bias taxonomy developed by Carter et al. (2007). In doing so, it augments the existing taxonomy of decision biases by investigating the relationships between debiasing activities and their expected impact on certain decision biases in the eld of supply management. This is further accomplished through the development of debiasing measures for the supplier selection decision, which represents a key process among supply management activities. A valid, mutually exclusive, and exhaustive taxonomy of debiasing measures is derived, based on highly fragmented extant literature and originated across different research elds, including economics, psychology, and behavioral and organizational decision making. The resulting generic debiasing taxonomy contains ve debiasing categories. To the best of our knowledge, there is currently no similar, scientically valid methodological approach in the extant literature that has derived a mutually exclusive and exhaustive debiasing taxonomy. By doing so, our approach followed the call by Parente and Gattiker (2004) to deploy new innovative data sources and methodologies that can fruitfully complement the large-scale empirical mail surveys that dominate the supply management eld (Carter and Ellram, 2003). Thus, the application and further integration of the Q-methodology into the supply management eld represents an additional contribution of this paper. Further, the use of the forced Q-sort methodology, in combination with our systematic review of the literature, allowed us to develop an exhaustive and mutually exclusive taxonomy of decision debiasing for the supplier selection process.

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The authors develop specic debiasing measures for the supplier selection context via an extensive literature search and review and provide specic examples of debiasing within this context. This is an important contribution to the eld, as much of the supplier selection research has traditionally overly relied on rational paradigms and focused on mathematical optimization; these studies can now be complemented with a rigorously developed, theoretically derived, and behavioral perspective. Our hope is that the suggested scale items will provide starting points for the development of measurement scales for the ve supplier selection-specic debiasing constructs and will facilitate much-needed additional empirical research which recognizes the potential to debias the judgment and decision-making processes of supply managers, as outlined in the next section of the paper. From a managerial standpoint, the derived debiasing taxonomy and suggested scale items also provide a starting point for an improved understanding of debiasing activities. Supply management executives and managers should consider that: . Decomposing supply management tasks may reduce the stress on buyers that can result from complexity in the decision-making process. This would involve clearly separating the subphases determining the criteria and weighting the criteria prior to the start of the information search and the supplier selection process. Supplier information should be structured and made comparable, for example, in terms of the framing of potential price discounts, in order to avoid judgment and decision biases based on different framings of information. . Putting themselves in the shoes of the supplier(s) during the decision process can help the buyers to break gridlocked thought patterns. This will avoid discarding important aspects of the supplier selection situation. It can help to effectively anticipate the suppliers underlying sales approaches. While this may seem like a basic negotiation tactic, the rationale differs. In this case, the motivation lies with reconsidering the buyers own process rather than only understanding the motivation and underlying interests of the supplier. . Before the nal decision is made, all potential supplier alternatives should be constructively challenged in order to draw attention to evidence and scenarios that would not have been considered otherwise. This effect can be initiated either by the buyer or by colleagues from supply management or other functions. . Having one person systematically adopt a devils advocate role during supply management processes has the potential to make the supplier selection process more rational. . Finally, raising the overall awareness of buyers about biases and mitigation strategies might be another set of activities that in this case can help to improve judgment and the decision-making process in general. Such an umbrella strategy complements, the other debiasing efforts which are employed on a decision-by-decision basis. As discussed next, one area in need of further research is to gain a better understanding of when and how supply managers should explicitly attempt to mitigate decision biases. Future research directions While answering this papers two research questions, new questions were also raised. This provides a valuable foundation and starting point for further research. This paper

has derived ve generic debiasing categories and ve corresponding categories for the supplier selection process. As such, the chosen focus was rather broad, and from a methodological perspective, the generic debiasing taxonomy introduced in this paper needs further empirical testing, as does the application to the supplier selection process, in order to extend the external validity. Given the current dominance of experiments in the elds of psychology, organization behavior, and behavioral economics, future research needs to develop measurement scales to enable the use of large-scale survey instruments and conrmatory analyses. Therefore, the batteries of proposed scale items for debiasing the supplier selection decision will have to be complemented and tested. While the results from the Q-methodology show that it was highly reliable in terms of assigning debiasing measures from the extant literature to the ve categories, discriminant validity deserves special attention in future research endeavors. In particular, for the supplier selection-related categories, further empirical scale development efforts may well lead to the nding that more than one construct emerges from one debiasing category. One possibility, for example, is that there may be different constructs in the decomposing category along the different phases of the supplier selection process. Furthermore, debiasing activities might also be tailored especially for the subsequent performance evaluation of existing suppliers, e.g. debiased supplier performance scoring models, as well as the decision of whether to outsource, whether to reorganize the supply chain department, and the many additional key decisions which are increasingly a responsibility of the supply management function. Another potentially promising avenue of further research is to investigate the antecedents of the identied debiasing measures: from a theoretical perspective accountability and knowledge appear to be important contextual variables for the application of debiasing measures (Kennedy, 1993; Larrick, 2004; Lerner and Tetlock, 1999; Puto, 1987; Tetlock, 1985). Furthermore, other relevant contextual factors such as institutional antecedents that focus on the differentiation of formal and informal processes could be further investigated. For instance, the research stream on institutions initiated by North (1990) and Scott (1995) could be integrated into the eld of BSM. As global sourcing further increases (Flynn, 2010; Hausman et al., 2010; Reuter et al., 2010), a very promising but resource-intensive research approach might then be to investigate debiasing behaviors across cultures, and for example, to contrast those in emerging and developed economies. This would be part of in-depth analyses of personal and cultural characteristics of buyers as antecedents. Finally, cost-benet aspects of debiasing activities represent another difcult, but interesting area for further research. The costs and organizational barriers for the implementation of debiasing strategies (e.g. acceptance hurdles by employees) could be investigated. Topics that center on the question of how the trade-off between benets from debiasing efforts and resources required for those efforts can be managed create another fruitful area for further research. This papers objective was to introduce debiasing activities into supplier selection research as a valuable complement to previous supplier selection approaches that have focused on the concept of rational decision making (e.g. homo economicus). By extending such prior assumptions of the buyer as a purely rational agent (Carter et al., 2007), the integration of behavioral aspects into the eld of supply management can also help to further develop the theoretical base in this eld. The analysis of extant generic debiasing research and the development of specic debiasing categories for supplier

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selection both help researchers and supply managers to gain a better understanding of debiasing mechanisms and to effectively further improve the supplier selection process. Thus, we hope that our debiasing taxonomy, analyses, and results further stimulate BSM research activities.

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Stephenson, W. (1935), Correlating persons instead of tests, Character and Personality, Vol. 4, pp. 17-24. Stephenson, W. (1953), The Study of Behavior: Q-Technique and Its Methodology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. Tetlock, P.E. (1985), Accountability: the neglected social context of judgment and choice, Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol. 7, pp. 297-332. Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. (1974), Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases, Science, Vol. 185 No. 4157, pp. 1124-31. Valacich, J.S. and Schwenk, C.R. (1995), Devils advocacy and dialectical inquiry effects on face-to-face and computer-mediated group decision making, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 63, pp. 158-73. Valenta, A.L. and Wigger, U. (1997), Q-methodology: denition and application in health care informatics, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Vol. 4 No. 6, pp. 501-10. Weber, C.A., Current, J.R. and Benton, W.C. (1991), Vendor selection criteria and methods, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 50 No. 1, pp. 2-18. About the authors Lutz Kaufmann is a Professor and holds the Chair of International Business & Supply Management at WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany. He also serves as the Director of WHUs Asia Center and its executive development programs. His research focuses on international strategy and supply management. He is the European Editor of the Journal of Supply Chain Management. His work has appeared in the Journal of Operations Management, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Journal of World Business, Journal of International Marketing, Management International Review, Journal of Business Logistics, Journal of Supply Chain Management, Transportation Research E, and The Journal of Purchasing & Supply Management. Lutz Kaufmann is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: lutz.kaufmann@whu.edu Craig R. Carter is a Visiting Professor of Supply Chain Management at WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany. His primary research stream focuses on the sustainable management of the supply chain. This research stream encompasses ethical issues in buyer-supplier relationships, environmental supply management, diversity sourcing, perceptions of opportunism surrounding electronic reverse auctions, and the broader, integrative concepts of social responsibility and sustainability. A secondary and often intersecting area of research examines international and cross-cultural supply chain management issues. He is a member of the editorial review boards of several journals, and the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Supply Chain Management. His research has appeared in numerous supply chain management journals including Decision Sciences, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Journal of Business Logistics, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Supply Chain Management, Transportation Journal, and Transportation Research E. Christian Buhrmann is a Research Associate at WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany. His primary research stream focuses on supplier selection decision making.

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