A Systematic Literature Review of Cognitive Biases in Workplace Decision-Making

Abstract

In this paper, a systematic literature review is performed to identify heuristics and biases of decision-making for employees in the workplace. The research starts by utilizing existing literature reviews until 2022 and then conducts its literature review to bridge the gap to 2025. The literature review is conducted with the help of methods from Kitchenham (2004) and Nightingale (2009). The databases EBSCOhost, Scopus, and Web of Science were used for searching related literature. A precise keyword string is used to search, as well as various filtering, in order to get peer-reviewed journal articles. Initially, 221 articles were found and reviewed, and 70 were included in the literature review. The literature review shows an overwhelming amount of studies in investment and finance settings. However, it further indicates a lack of studies in other areas, especially in the workplace setting, such as in Singapore. Furthermore, it overviews the most prominent biases and recommends that further studies in other settings could utilize similar biases. The biases were overconfidence bias, herding bias, and decision avoidance bias. Thus, further research into other fields and regions could utilize these biases to get new insights into these topics.