Entrepreneurship, Behavioral Biases, and Ethics: Are They Instrumental for Overcoming Crises?

It is widely recognized that human behavior is far from being perfectly rational. Many insights from psychology, sociology, and even biology show that we are susceptible to perceptual, judgmental, and behavioral biases and to psychological and social “soft” influencing of decision making. The latter gains more traction, both in society and in business, than any neutral problem-solving goal. In general, persons are more receptive and biased towards attitude and moral stances than towards rational argumentation: At any given moment in time, some problems are intractable by given technical means but they still need to be overcome in some way. Behavioral economics shows us that human behavior is not rational and consistent, as textbook theory suggests. Entrepreneurs act opportunistically but market pressure is driving firms also towards “bad” opportunism; however, ethics can limit this propensity. Psychological and social influencing, described in behavioral economics, can guide the behavior towards being more aligned with the public good. Our research question is whether and how such influencing can be compatible with capitalist entrepreneurship, for example, by generating green investment funds. Our derived research goal is then to explore the mechanisms behind influencing, their relation to moral behavior and ethics – especially in today’s atmosphere of multiple crisis. The research method used is to first qualitatively review mechanisms of influencing. However, the complex, intertemporal context calls for procedures of inclusive action, which we outline in a conceptual approach in the spirit of business informatics. We conclude that under specific conditions entrepreneurship may indeed prove instrumental for overcoming crises.