Avoiding missed opportunities in managerial life: Analogical training more powerful than individual case training

Thompson, L., Loewenstein, J. and Gentner, D. (2000). Avoiding missed opportunities in managerial life: Analogical training more powerful than individual case training. Organization Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82 (1), 60-75.

Abstract

We examined the ability of master of business administration students to transfer knowledge gained from case studies to a face-to-face negotiation task. During a study phase, students either read two cases and gave advice to the protagonist in each case ("Advice" condition) or derived an overall principle by comparing two cases ("Comparison" condition). Management students in the Comparison condition were nearly three times as likely to transfer the principle in their actual, face-to-face bargaining situation as those in the Advice condition. Further, content analysis of students' open-ended responses revealed that the quality of the advice given in the Advice condition did not predict subsequent behavior, whereas the quality of the principles given in the Comparison condition did predict successful transfer to the negotiation situation. Perhaps most striking is the fact that not a single person in the Advice condition seemed to draw a parallel between the two cases presented to them, even though they were printed on the same page. We conclude that the value of examples is far greater if analogical comparisons among examples are encouraged. We propose that this simple and cost-effective method can substantially improve the benefits of professional training and education.