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Missed It By ‘That Much’: Near Miss Performance and Firm Risk-Taking
Abstract   Open access

Missed It By ‘That Much’: Near Miss Performance and Firm Risk-Taking

Owen Nelson Parker, Ryan Adam Krause, Mandy Johnson and Spencer James Fraseur
Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, Vol.2026(1)
07/2026
DOI: 10.5465/AMPROC.2026.10787abstract
url
https://doi.org/10.5465/AMPROC.2026.10787abstractView
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

This paper revisits a core assumption in research on performance feedback and the Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTOF): that when performance falls below aspirations, firms are presumed to take risks at a level commensurate with the shortfall. We challenge this notion, drawing on gambling research to argue that when performance falls just short of the aspiration—a phenomenon we term ‘near miss performance’—decision-makers become frustrated, engage in counterfactual thinking, and ultimately pursue disproportionate risk-taking due to ‘situational irrationality’. We distinguish this from bounded rationality and outline implications for current theory and future research.

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