Abstract
Project expert evaluation is the backbone of public funding allocation. A slight change in score can push a proposal below or above a funding line. Academic researchers have discovered many factors that may affect evaluation decision quality, yet the subject of cognitive proximity towards decision quality has not been considered thoroughly. Using 923 observations of the 2017 Beijing Innofund data, the study finds that cognitive proximity has an inverted “U-shape” relation to decision-making quality. Moreover, two contextual factors, evaluation experience and evaluation efforts, exert moderation effects on the inverted U shape. These findings fill the gaps in the current research on cognition-based perspective by specifying the mechanism of cognitive proximity in the evaluation field and contributing to improving decision-making quality by selecting appropriate evaluators. Theoretical contributions and policy implications have been discussed.
Highlights
Project expert evaluation is the backbone of public funding allocation
We propose the following hypothesis, H2: The inverted U-shaped relationship between cognitive proximity and decision quality is moderated by evaluation experience, such that the curvilinear relationship is less pronounced for evaluators with high evaluation experience than for those with low evaluation experience
We propose the following hypothesis, H3: The inverted U-shaped relationship between cognitive proximity and decision quality is moderated by evaluation efforts, such that the curvilinear relationship is less pronounced for evaluators with high evaluation efforts than for those with low evaluation efforts
Summary
In order to select the most innovative and promising project, grant funding agencies rely on project evaluation experts to decide which projects get funded. On such occasions, evaluators’ evaluation feedback and results are essential references for final resource allocation decisions (Olbrecht and Bornmann, 2010). Among the various factors that may affect decision quality, cognitive proximity towards decision quality has not been considered thoroughly, and the results remain inconsistent (Bornmann et al, 2010; Lee et al, 2013). The degree to which an individual’s decision quality tends to rely on Cognitive Proximity and Decision Quality cognitive familiarity needs to be investigated, and how they make reviewers uncertain need to be further explored
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