Deploying small world representation logic, we examine the context-specific factors that inform managerial decision-making in conflict-torn countries. Drawing on insights from thirty-one managers, we spotlight nine higher-order heuristics that commonly inform MNEs’ mental representations and their managers’ decision to exit or stay. These heuristics were identified by categorising the commonalities arising from our respondents’ accounts on what information they search for (discovery heuristics) and how it was evaluated (evaluation heuristics). We discovered that information accessibility, conditioned by firms’ in-country experiences, is paramount. Furthermore, since employees are strategy shapers, they can undermine the resilience-enhancing benefits of operational flexibility in conflict-torn countries.

运用小世界表征逻辑，我们研究了为冲突国家的管理决策提供信息的特定背景因素。借鉴 31 位经理的见解，我们重点介绍了九种高阶启发法，这些启发法通常为跨国公司的心理表征及其经理退出或留下的决定提供信息。这些启发式是通过对我们的受访者关于他们搜索什么信息（发现启发式）以及如何评估信息（评估启发式）的帐户所产生的共性进行分类来识别的). 我们发现，以公司在国内的经验为条件的信息可访问性是最重要的。此外，由于员工是战略制定者，他们可能会破坏饱受冲突蹂躏的国家运营灵活性带来的增强弹性的好处。