Predicting the Next Big Thing: Success as a Signal of Poor Judgment

Management Science, Vol. 56, No. 10, pp. 1653-1667, 2010

38 Pages Posted: 7 Jun 2010 Last revised: 8 Jan 2015

See all articles by Jerker Denrell

Jerker Denrell

Independent

Christina Fang

New York University (NYU) - Department of Management and Organizational Behavior

Date Written: June 7, 2010

Abstract

Successfully predicting that something will become a big hit seems impressive. Managers and entrepreneurs who have made successful predictions and have invested money on this basis are promoted, become rich, and may end up on the cover of business magazines. In this paper, we show that an accurate prediction about such an extreme event, e.g., a big hit, may in fact be an indication of poor rather than good forecasting ability. We first demonstrate how this conclusion can be derived from a formal model of forecasting. We then illustrate that the basic result is consistent with data from two lab experiments as well as field data on professional forecasts from the Wall Street Journal Survey of Economic Forecasts.

Keywords: Managerial Foresight, Forecasting, Resource Based View of the Firm

Suggested Citation

Denrell, Jerker and Fang, Christina, Predicting the Next Big Thing: Success as a Signal of Poor Judgment (June 7, 2010). Management Science, Vol. 56, No. 10, pp. 1653-1667, 2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1621800

Jerker Denrell

Independent

Christina Fang (Contact Author)

New York University (NYU) - Department of Management and Organizational Behavior ( email )

44 West 4th Street
New York, NY 10012
United States

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