Chimera heuristics: Generative rational heuristics for the unknown from design theory

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• Author: Agathe Gilain,Pascal Le Masson,Benoit Weil
• Date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12621

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

Chimera heuristics: Generative rational heuristics for the unknown

from design theory

Agathe Gilain

1,2

| Pascal Le Masson

1

| Benoit Weil

1

1

Center for Management Science, i3 UMR

CNRS 9217, Mines Paris –PSL Research

University, Paris, France

2

IRT SystemX, Palaiseau, France

Correspondence

Agathe Gilain and Pascal Le Masson, Center

for Management Science, i3 UMR CNRS 9217,

Mines Paris –PSL Research University,

60 boulevard Saint Michel, Paris 75006, France.

Email: agathe.gilain@mines-paristech.fr and

pascal.le_masson@mines-paristech.fr

[Correction added on 1 December 2023, after

first online publication: Pascal le Le Masson’s

name has been corrected to Pascal Le Masson]

Abstract

The learning strategies offered by science for discovering the world by generating

and testing hypotheses have been used abundantly to build decision-making heu-

ristics. In contrast, decision-making heuristics for (re)designing the world are

rarer. This paper develops a heuristic combining the exploratory power of chi-

meras with a design logic. Chimeras have long been used to foster imagination

and build initially unknown futures. And recent advances in design theory show

that in decision-making situations, chimeras can be generated as nonfalsifiable

existential statements about desirable alternatives and events. Moreover, design

theory offers learning operations that handle nonfalsifiable statements to generate

new real objects. This paper uses these operations to build a rational heuristic that

may or may not transform initial chimeras into reality. Its main effect is to ensure

that stimulated learning leads to decision alternatives (whether pre-existing or

novel) that surpass the initial optimal one. This paves the way for a class of

design-based heuristics extending the main functions of Bayesian learning to a

non-Bayesian world.

KEYWORDS

decision design, design theory, generativity, heuristics, rationality, unknown

INTRODUCTION—LEARNING

STRATEGIES IN THE UNKNOWN: THE

EXPLORATIVE POWER OF CHIMERAS

What should a decision-maker do when he or she is con-

vinced that the set of alternatives to be decided on is

incomplete and possibly populated by better decision

alternatives and events that are difficult to imagine?

Decades ago, Shackle (1953) coined the term “resid-

ual hypothesis”to describe this situation, considered to

be a major limitation of the assumptions of the Bayesian

decision-making framework. This limitation has triggered

the development of heuristics that suggest systematic

learning strategies through the generation and testing of

hypotheses.

Inspired by theorizing processes (Ehrig &

Schmidt, 2022; Felin & Zenger, 2009; Felin &

Zenger, 2017) and the scientific method

(e.g., Grandori, 2010), these heuristics are methods of

knowledge inquiry and knowledge construction that

extend and restructure the space of known truths

(including known beliefs) to allow discoveries when rely-

ing on experience, observations, and perceptions is insuf-

ficient. These heuristics have been claimed to fulfill both

“economic rationality”(i.e., controlling the cost of

searching for and acquiring new knowledge so that the

total does not exceed a certain budget) and “epistemic

rationality”(i.e., generating knowledge and learning that

guide rational courses of actions oriented toward an

objective of reaching discoveries) (Grandori, 2013;

Grandori & Cholakova, 2013). These heuristics imple-

ment a rationality of discovery that guides the explora-

tion of the unknown by allowing us to better know the

world as it is in a way that complements Bayesian

rationality.

In contrast, heuristics for decision-making that imple-

ment a rationality of design in the sense of Simon’s(

1969)

science of the artificial are less abundant. They also aim

at rational learning strategies, yet for guiding a creative

exploration of the unknown. Their goal is to (re)design

the world as it should be from the perspective of the

decision-maker. Accordingly, this paper proposes a

DOI: 10.1111/emre.12621

European Management Review. 2023;20:665–678. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/emre © 2023 European Academy of Management. 665