{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,29]],"date-time":"2026-04-29T20:46:03Z","timestamp":1777495563751,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":59,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,23]],"date-time":"2025-07-23T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1753228800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Edgell Sheppee Fund and Pembroke College, University of Oxford, UK","award":["EP\/X029557\/1"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["EP\/X029557\/1"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Entropy"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Analyzing and leveraging data effectively has been an advantageous strategy in the management workflows of many contemporary organizations. In business and finance, data-informed decision workflows are nowadays essential for enabling development and growth. However, there is yet a theoretical or quantitative approach for analyzing the cost\u2013benefit of the processes in such workflows, e.g., in determining the trade-offs between machine- and human-centric processes and quantifying biases. The aim of this work is to translate an information-theoretic concept and measure for cost\u2013benefit analysis to a methodology that is relevant to the analysis of hybrid decision workflows in business and finance. We propose to combine an information-theoretic approach (i.e., information-theoretic cost\u2013benefit analysis) and an engineering approach (e.g., workflow decomposition), which enables us to utilize information-theoretic measures to estimate the cost\u2013benefit of individual processes quantitatively. We provide three case studies to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed methodology, including (i) the use of a statistical and computational algorithm, (ii) incomplete information and humans\u2019 soft knowledge, and (iii) cognitive biases in a committee meeting. While this is an early application of information-theoretic cost\u2013benefit analysis to business and financial workflows, it is a significant step towards the development of a systematic, quantitative, and computer-assisted approach for optimizing data-informed decision workflows.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/e27080780","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,23]],"date-time":"2025-07-23T16:04:51Z","timestamp":1753286691000},"page":"780","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Information-Theoretic Cost\u2013Benefit Analysis of Hybrid Decision Workflows in Finance"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"27","author":[{"given":"Philip","family":"Beaucamp","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QG, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Harvey","family":"Maylor","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Sa\u00efd Business School, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1HP, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5320-5729","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Min","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QG, UK"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,23]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ajah, I.A., and Nweke, H.F. 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