Short-term Thinking Research Articles

A Bias Toward Short-Term Thinking in Threat-Related Negative Emotional States

Some decisions must be made repeatedly and have consequences that change depending on how often each alternative is chosen. Such temporally extended decisions are pervasive and important, and often involve short-term/long-term tradeoffs. Can unrelated emotion and stress influence such decisions? In negative emotional states involving threats, people should favor what is better at the time regardless of possible long-term consequences. Supporting this hypothesis, in Experiment 1, college students randomly assigned to see aversive images repeatedly made choices that had better short-term but poorer long-term effects, and so earned less money than students shown neutral images, effect size r = .71. In Experiment 2, students reporting stress about impending exams showed a similar bias, r=.53.Thehypothesis and results are relevant to decision making, delay of gratification, distributed choice, and self-control.

Long-term thinking and the politics of reconceptualization

This essay is a response to the dominance of short-term thinking in Western culture. It begins with a critique of the minimal, or fleeting, present and then explores some possibilities for extending what might be meant by the ‘present’. It suggests that considerable utility may be derived from a more careful and considered use of particular timeframes. It is doubtful whether questions of sustainability, the rights of future generations and, indeed, the disciplined study of futures can be resolved without a number of innovations based on long-term thinking. The latter part of the essay considers two—the creation of institutions of foresight and an international programme of 21st century studies.

Using core competences to develop new business

A S THE INDUSTRIAL and economic climate of the 80s becomes history, the continued absolute and relative decline of key manufacturing industries in the US and Europe grows apparent. The doggedness of the recession and the continued fierce competition from Japan and other Asian countries, together with rapid technological change in many areas, produce an environment as harsh and demanding as any time since the end of World War II. In an environment such as this, the basic credo of new business development (NBD)-namely that ‘more of the same won’t do’becomes an axiom, a critical challenge to find and implement new strategies for growth. However, as described by Bakker and Wexler,’ NBD is a high-risk activity with a substantial likelihood of failure. Difficulties in developing new strategies for growth arise not from a corporation’s lack of initiative, but rather more often from the corporation’s inability to successfully identify the best strategies: ‘Without a proper diagnosis [of the business], managers cannot choose the best moves to defend or enhance the current position’ (p. 1).2 So much of the NBD activity in which companies engage is dominated by short-term thinking, lacking the fundamental underpinnings suitable for NBD strategy: ‘When faced with a business problem . . . company discussions on how to generate additional growth focus on only two options: new products and acquisitions [of companies]‘(p. 73.l Thus, this approach to the NBD process has commonly reflected the view that Hamel and Prahalad3 describe when discussing existing products as the ‘jumping-off point’ for business growth and that indeed most companies are still competing on the price/performance attributes of current products (with a new model/generation in the pipeline). The last few years have seen a shift from large scale diversified conglomerates to a concentration on core In the 1 ?$s, with thtto-daq’j3Bt) nsstrategic intent and misfii-imply strongly that the NBD process &elf should be considered an essential core competence for the modern cdrporatidn.

Performance evaluation: A deadly disease?

W. Edwards Deming condemned performance evaluations as a deadly disease afflicting American management. He argued that performance evaluations nourish fear, encourage short-term thinking, stifle teamwork, and are no better than lotteries. This article examines library literature from Deming's perspective. Although that literature accepts performance evaluations as useful, it betrays doubts.

Science, technology and futures for Australia

Australia does not lack innovative people. But a combination of short-term thinking, material comfort and lack of concern for basic science has meant that many cultural and commercial opportunities have been lost. The need to develop more efficient ways of producing and utilizing energy provides a chance to put our creativity and enterprise to constructive use.

Strategic planning and remuneration

Management thought, practice and process have changed dramatically over the recent past and we need new ways to think about how business performs and how to measure the managers who run our business operations. With rapidly changing markets, technologies, customers, suppliers and consumers, more and more emphasis is being placed on thinking strategically and on how to position the business for the future. Unfortunately many firms are still grappling with the concept of strategy and do not fully understand the concept of strategic management. As a result, many managers are being encouraged by the reward and compensation system to act in their own interests and not in the company's interests. Poorly designed measurement and compensation systems tend to reward short-term thinking and do not recognize the value of strategic compensation systems. Managers must be made partners in a firm's success by linking compensation to the strategic variables of success.

A new approach to capital payment in a competitive era.

Prologue: One important item on the health agenda of the new Congress will be the formulation of a policy to prospectively pay hospitals for the Medicare portion of their capital costs. When the Medicare prospective payment system was signed into law in 1983, Congress delayed its decision on how to fund capital costs until it could research the issue more fully. Now, with the October 1987 deadline for determining a capital payment policy around the corner, discussion of capital issues has been active among the health policy community. In this article, Jonathan Betz Brown analyzes the thought behind the various flat-rate capital payment proposals under consideration, asserting that while they look simple and effective, they probably are not. Additionally, they “will get us into deep trouble in the long run,” he argues. The author then presents a new approach to capital payment that has emerged from a three-and-a-half-year study by the Harvard Health Capital Project. This proposal of “planned payment” looks at the long-range implications of designing capital policy and attempts to build in the flexibility that is so necessary in our rapidly changing health care environment. Brown, an assistant professor of public policy and health planning at the Harvard School of Public Health, emphasizes the need to recognize capital payment—beyond Medicare— as a fundamental health policy issue: “Present capital decisions cast a long shadow. Long-term commitments based on short-term thinking or mistaken forecasts could have tragic consequences.” Also, Brown asks, How can we design community and governmental institutions that really work in a competitive era? He suggests that this question of integrating public policy and community planning into a competitive market needs to be addressed as seriously as are questions surrounding financial reimbursement. Brown , who holds both a master's degree and doctorate in public policy from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, has studied capital issues for the past five years and has been closely involved in the Health Capital Project.