4.
1990 – 1992
Assessment on factual and past information
Free form interviews
Initially, Blinder had intended to conduct free-form
interviews with about 20 companies, tailoring the
questions to each respondent. However, he decided to
expand the number to 200 companies and to aim for a
random sample survey of the entire GDP
61% agreed
CEO for small Companies and executive for larger firms
5.
4 Fortune 1000 companies
1979-1982
Multiple interviews
Purpose: understand the corporate planning and
investment processes related to investment and to
generate a model based on the planning process in one of
the firms
6. Capital Investment Process
Cash flow equations
Changes in the Hurdle rates
Limits on debt etc
Extensive data collection
7.
Publishes his reports in 1995 and 1998
336 interviews with business leaders, union officials,
business consultant, employment counselors
Obstacle: Confidential information
Respondents without intermediaries
Test the theories
Formulating New theories
8. Use of relaxed language
Keeping discussion concrete
Requesting specific examples
Less structured and open ended questions
Maintaining eye contact
Humorous tone
Respondents knowledge and education
No use of tape recorders
Cold Calls
Avoid Economic jargons
Follow up calls
9. Uniformity between informants
Interviews reveals both rationality and irrationality
“wage rigidity is the most complicated employee
behaviour, in the face of which manager reluctance to cut
pay is rational”
Motives may be unconscious
Bewley’s interviews reveal that labour is in excess supply
during recessions and that employers avoid hiring over
qualified workers.
Voluntary quits do not increase but, rather, decrease
sharply during recessions.
10.
Interviewed 113 metalworking enterprises
United States, Mexico and Argentina – decision making
process
9 trade associations in 3 regions
80% of the companies agreed to be interviewed
Interview session – 2-3 hrs
Follow up session – 3 hrs to 3 days
11.
Small- and medium-size enterprises rarely estimate
market demand as prices are substantially different from
prevailing levels
The anchoring and adjustment heuristic is an important
determinant of inventory decisions
High profits objective stated by most firms does not lead to
consistently maximizing behaviour.
12.
36 interviews – 1994
Manufacturing enterprises
FINDINGS
The reasoning of decision makers usually involves
heuristics rather than careful calculation
Reasoning by analogy from past experience is particularly
common
13.
Interview based analysis requires more time than other
types of study
They have number of limitations
Case base studies
Better development of Hypothesis
Most analyses of decision making at the enterprise level are based on data fromexperimental laboratories or on publicly available information.. Only a few studies are basedon open-ended interviews with decision makers and attempt to ferret out the reasoningunderlying the decisions. Although these interview-based analyses haveseveral objectives, they primarily attempt to draw attention to the most promisingamong the available hypotheses about enterprise decision making
Their survey stress the importanceon microeconomic data underlying macroeconomic phenomenon. . The overview discusses the coverage of corporate governance, humancapital, technology, market structure, transaction analysis, the role of the state,and the micro foundations of macroeconomics, particularly with respect to therelationship of investment and growth.
The Blinder project was based on interviews that began in 1990 and ended in1992. Blinder et al. (1998) give two justifications for resorting to a survey that asksbusiness leaders not only for factual information but also for assessments of what they had done. .
He published preliminary reports of his analysis of wages in 1995 and1998 with a final version appearing at the end of the decade.An obstacle, he observes, is that respondents consider manykinds of decisions to be highly confidential.Given that networking might have led to a certain bias in the study on wages, heapproached most possible respondents without intermediaries. he offers the results of 336 interviews with business leaders, union officials,employment counselors, and business consultants in the northeastern UnitedStates (principally Connecticut) during the recession of the early 1990sIf the objective [of interviewing] is to test given theories, you should be sure to cover the questions relevant to those theories. If the objective is to understand the shape of a general phenomenon with a view to formulating new theories, then the style should be less structured in the hopes that the respondent will come up with unexpected description and arguments.”
Don’t look down. Finally,you might ask how respondents acquired their knowledge; were they educatedby experience or business culture.” Bewley did not use a tape recorder because hewas concerned that it might inhibit respondents, but in the more sensitive studyof pricing, he did use one, and few seemed to be bothered by it. Second, Bewley (1999) offers arguments for and against the less structured,open-ended approach of listening to firms with only a memorized list of questionsand concerns, not all of which are necessarily to be asked of all of those interviewed.
studies. He observes that motives may beunconscious. That is, people may not be aware of the principles governing theirbehaviour. fall. Interview and other data indicatethat voluntary quits do not increase but, rather, decrease sharply during recessions.The attitudes of the unemployed are not consistent with their choosing leisure overwork; indeed, workers who can find second jobs generally accept them to maintaintheir income.
Schwartz (1987) interviewed 113 metalworking enterprises in several regions eachof the United States, Mexico, and Argentina in an effort to understand decisionmakingprocesses in a particular group of industries
case studies that reflect an improvedunderstanding of decision making may motivate more successful financialand economic behavior.he in-depthinterview-based studies may facilitate the development of better hypotheses ofhow to implement recommendations that emanate from good analyses.
