This report studies and compares business leaders’ strategy choices with those of a control group of other professionals. The report is based on a research article by Holm, Opper, and Nee published in Experimental Economics 2019.
The study of CEOs’ strategic decisions is important, as CEOs have a prominent role in society. As leaders, their actions have significant implications for an array of other stakeholders, such as employees, suppliers, clients, and not least the economy at large. Business leaders are also likely to play an important role in transmitting values, norms, and beliefs to other economic actors. Therefore, it is important to understand if and in what sense they differ from others in their decision making. Their greater experience in strategic performance suggests that they could differ from others in strategic decision-making situations. Despite the obvious relevance of studying this subject pool, there are very few experimental studies of CEOs. Most likely, this is explained by the fact that CEOs are very busy and therefore hard to recruit for experimental studies.