Technical and management note: A note on the phenomenon of decisional hysteresis

Certain decision processes, such as the R&D budgeting process, that involve interaction among individuals may exhibit a bistable characteristic. This phenomenon is similar in shape to the hysteresis phenomenon observed in physical systems. Such phenomena are often difficult to analyze unless they can be broken down into separate, single-valued functions. The type of feedback analysis that has proven useful in analyzing physical hysteresis in bi-stable circuits seems to be applicable to the analysis of organizational phenomena such as decisional hysteresis. Because this form of analysis is likely to be unfamiliar to those whose research or practice lies in the field of organizational behavior, it is offered here as a potentially useful tool.