Abstract for: Why Doesn't Information Always Impact Decisions? Navigating Goal Ambiguity, Worldviews, and Information in Strategic Decisions

Why does evidence and information (including models) exert weaker-than-expected influence in complex strategic decisions, while worldviews consistently shape choices? We argue that goal ambiguity—multiple conflicting objectives without prioritization—explains this pattern. Clear goals provide external benchmarks constraining interpretation; ambiguous goals require decision-makers to construct their own success criteria. Under ambiguity, worldviews and available information serve as interpretive anchors through which decision-makers define priorities, fundamentally altering how each influences choices. To examine the moderating role of goal ambiguity in the relationship between information, worldviews, and decisions, we conducted a controlled dynamic decision-making experiment. The experiment employed an interactive system dynamics simulation model based on a recalibrated version of Forrester’s World Dynamics (1971), adapted to represent postgrowth sustainability trade-offs and complex strategic decision contexts. Results show that goal ambiguity fundamentally reshapes decision behavior. When goals are clear, neither worldviews nor additional information substantially affect allocation patterns; when goals are ambiguous, both exert significant effects, consistent with our hypotheses. Moreover, under ambiguous goals, worldview effects are consistently larger than information effects, shedding light on why additional informational inputs often produce limited visible shifts in complex strategic decisions. These findings help explain why evidence often exerts limited visible influence in complex strategic decisions and provide guidance to operational and system dynamics researchers to strengthen evidence use in practice. Surprisingly, most participants also failed to identify goal ambiguity when asked directly, pointing to a recognition gap in awareness of the goal structures shaping their behavior, which warrants further investigation. Used to improve readability