PhD Defence: Leo van Brussel

Abstract

Modern businesses increasingly rely on big data and artificial intelligence. However, behind every data point lies a human decision. To be successful, managers must also understand the psychological processes that drive decision-making. Traditional research methods, such as surveys and focus groups, provide valuable insights, but may fail to capture the subconscious processes that influence decisions. This dissertation demonstrates how neuroscientific methods can generate novel business insights by measuring these processes in the brain.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this dissertation studies brain activity in three distinct domains of business. In marketing, it shows that storytelling advertisements persuade consumers not because they share a character’s feelings, but because they engage brain networks involved in understanding a character’s intentions. In finance, it finds that reward-related brain activity of professional investors is associated with future stock performance, even when their explicit market forecasts are not. In organizational management, brain activity reveals how biases shape social judgments: while expectations of cooperation are based on perceived similarity and attractiveness, actual cooperation depends primarily on the explicit commitments that people make.
Together, the findings of this dissertation leverage neuroscientific methods to reveal psychological processes underlying economic decision-making in business contexts. By illuminating the hidden mechanisms of narrative persuasion, financial intuition, and interpersonal cooperation, brain activity informs business practices in ways that self-report studies cannot. Even as artificial intelligence continues to transform businesses, these findings prove that the biological mind remains an indispensable source of insights.