Showing What You Don’t Know The Effect of Visualization on Managers’ Illusion of Explanatory Depth Regarding Strategic Digital Technologies

In the strategy-as-practice paradigm, workshops and meetings are seen as a crucial element of the strategizing and strategic decision-making process. Decisions made in these episodes may not only be flawed due to cognitive biases, but also by a misleading view about one’s own knowledge about critical strategic issues like digital technologies. This experimental study is the first to apply the IOED theory to strategizing and shows that experienced managers indeed suffer from a significant illusion of explanatory depth (IOED) regarding their understanding of digital technologies. In terms of interventions, the study also reveals that visualizing one’s own understanding is a strong self-calibration mechanism and therefore helps strategy practitioners and facilitators of strategic episodes to reduce this illusion in their strategizing practices.