Biased by sustainability? How cognitive biases shape procurement decisions under information equivocality

Purpose Climate change introduces new informational asymmetries across supply chains, increasing managers' need to process sustainability-related information in procurement decisions. Such information is equivocal, making its interpretation challenging and increasing decision-makers’ susceptibility to cognitive biases. Building on organizational information-processing theory and behavioral decision-making research, this study examines how cognitive biases shape procurement decisions involving sustainability information. Design/methodology/approach We developed hypotheses on cognitive biases emerging from three characteristics of sustainability information: structural properties (risky choice framing, attribute framing, numeracy and anchoring), inferential dynamics (halo effect) and social influences (herd effect). We tested these hypotheses through between-subject vignette-based experiments depicting individual, one-shot procurement decisions. The experiments were conducted in person with 475 participants, including managers and students. Findings We found that sustainability-oriented procurement decisions are vulnerable to cognitive biases. In particular, biases induced by the structural properties of information produced the strongest effects across both managers and students, followed by distortions emerging from inferential dynamics. In contrast, socially driven distortions emerged only among students, suggesting that professional experience mitigates reliance on peer behavior. Originality/value This study extends organizational information-processing theory-based sustainable supply chain management research by demonstrating that individual-level cognitive biases shape the interpretation of sustainability information. In doing so, we characterize the interpretation stage as being sensitive to information architecture, inferential reasoning and, under conditions of social influence, the professional experience of the decision-maker. Finally, we provide guidance for designing sustainability information and procurement decision processes that reduce susceptibility to cognitive biases.