Heuristics and biases uncovered during the digitalisation decision-making process in the Property Sector

Abstract

The property industry is lagging other industries in the drive towards digitalisation. This study hypothesised that biases and heuristics encountered during the digitisation decision-making process contributed to this delay. Biases could increase the property industry practitioners’ reluctance or resistance to make the digitisation decision and could further add to the complexity of the decision-making process. Most of the previous research in this field had been conducted quantitatively, utilising surveys and experiments to detect the presence of specific pre-selected biases, but only expected biases could be measured in this way. The present study followed a qualitative approach in which unstructured in-depth interviews with a purposively selected sample of property industry decision-makers allowed the detection of many biases. The sample covered a broad spectrum of the industry including decision-makers from the listed property sector, private sector commercial property developers, commercial property financiers, and residential real estate agencies. The study detected 37 biases that influenced the digitisation decision.

Keywords: Heuristics, Biases, Decision, making, Digitisation, Digitalisation, Investment Decision

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1003886