CIICPD 2023

the graph (Figue 3) below, but also the frequency, attention, and significance it gained during the training and discussions.

Figure 3: Types of biases by participant experience

3.1.1 Authority Bias The attitude and willingness to respect authorities is one of the sociocultural aspects defining relationships and cooperation in societies (Hofstede et al, 2004; Trompenaars and Woolliams, 2003). In companies, it not only sets the character of communication and cooperation between supervisors and their employees, but also helps understand intrapersonal problems and resolve them. Managers, therefore, need to be able to deal with authority bias not only on the side of their employees, but also as leaders themselves. Authority bias also predominated the discussions during the workshops. The participants observed that a superior’s view, opinion or attitudes, especially in the case of managers from higher ranks, tend to be automatically or more easily accepted as more prestigious or true, and tend to be given “automatically higher importance” . Some of the participants saw these attitudes as a steady company culture in ŠA, sometimes “blindly” accepted by the employees or taken as “a holy cow” . A few other contributions raised the problem of it being “ difficult to get one’s own opinion through” against a boss’ stance. Some even observed in their practice that “once a boss makes a decision, it is laid down, no discussions”; one claimed being even given the general advice of “ to better say nothing, stay quiet” to have the boss decide on their own. The participants also observed a tendency in the company to accept the ideas of a superior without critical judgement or even adapt their own ideas and comply with the supervisor. For example, one participant observed situations “when whatever the boss says is definite and people simply do” without a debate “even if it is a brilliant idea”. This phenomenon was confirmed by a few other participants corroborating the frame that “the superior is always right” in their company, and employees “have to do things their way”, even if their ideas were potentially “better”, more “rational” or “original” . A non-critical approach to the superiors’ stances was seen in some of the participants’ views as a result of “authoritative leadership” . One of the participants depicted the

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