Date: March 6th 2012

Ms. Caproni,

You mention that you are reading Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. I like his TED Talk that distills his latest book, and its very accessible to undergraduates. Even if you are reading the book, the video helps (sigh). See:

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html

My two favorite HBR readings on the subject of decision-making are:

Davenport, T. (2009), "Make Better Decisions", Harvard Business Review, Nov.

Hammond, J., Keeney, R., and Raiffa, H. (2006, originally from 1998), "The Hidden Traps in Decision Making", Harvard Business Review, Jan.

Assuming Kahneman's tome is a bit much, my favorite text for class (I summarize the key principles for students in a lecture) is:

Hastie, R., and Dawes R. (2010), "Rational Choice in an Uncertain World: The Psychology of Judgment and Decision-making (2nd ed.)"

For a graduate class on innovation and technology that I taught a couple of years ago, I also used some simple, custom scripts in the R statistical computing language to switch between "regression" output and "decision tree" output in a visual way as one part of the decision-making process. If you have more time, you could include "systems dynamics" (think Senge's Fifth Discipline--e.g., detail complexity v. relationship complexity or

For graduate students interested in consulting jobs that plan to use data to inform decisions, I am partial to the following paper:

Breiman, L. (2001). "Statistical Modeling: the Two Cultures". Statistical Science 16 (3): 199–215

One last thing: Cognitive neuroscience has advanced so much in the past ten years that a brief summary of brain physiology (neurotransmitters, etc.) is likely a reasonable component of any management decision-making presentation in modernity.

Best,

Wayne Smith, Ph.D.
Lecturer
Department of Management
California State University, Northridge

On 3/5/2012 3:56 PM, Caproni, Paula wrote: > Hi All:
>
> I'm pulling together a 3 hour module on cognitive biases and decision > management for a course and would like any advice regarding readings, > videos (preferably online ones), activities, must-know perspectives, > etc. that you feel would work well. I am reading "Thinking Fast and > Slow" by Daniel Kahnemanand finding a lot of good material in that book. > I also like Dan Ariely'sTed.comvideo (about 17 minutes) on "Are we in > control of our decisions" and all of his books. But those two won't > cover 3 hours so I'm looking for more useful and enjoyable teaching > tools that will keep students engaged and will give them useful > perspectives and skills that will help them be better decision > makers/managers.
>
> Here's the Dan Arielyvideo link:
> http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions.html >
> Thanks much.
>
> Paula
>
> /Paula J. Caproni, Ph.D./
>
> /Management and Organizations Faculty/ >
> /Academic Director, Full-Time MBA Program/ >
> /Ross School of Business/
>
> /University of Michigan/
>
> The following information is a reminder of your current mailing list > subscription:
>
> You are subscribed to the following list: OBTS-L Discussion List >
> using the following email: wayne.smith@csun.edu >
> You may unsubscribe from this list at any time by visiting the following > URL:
>
> http://www.obts.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/OBTS/user/example.com/ > <http://www.obts.org/mail/mail.cgi/u/OBTS/wayne.smith/csun.edu/> >
> Mailing List Powered by Dada Mail
> <http://www.obts.org/mail/mail.cgi/what_is_dada_mail/> >