Behavioral biases in corporate risk management and investment decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has caused great turbulence in global financial markets. The first goal of this conceptual paper is to explore whether managers of companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange are susceptible to selected behavioral biases related to irrational risk preferences. We also seek to investigate whether susceptibility to these errors may affect selected management practices in the areas of corporate risk management and investment policy. The second major goal of our project is to identify whether there is a link at the micro level, that is, between the aforementioned irrational management practices resulting from susceptibility to behavioral biases and the macro level (i.e., certain macroeconomic indicators, such as aggregate investment, employment, and growth). We hope that our research project will contribute to shifting the paradigm of economics in such a way that the behavioral approach will be increasingly used and acknowledged by researchers.