Business Decision Making, Second Edition


Book Description

How do executives make decisions? Are their decisions conscious or unconscious? Can they explain each decision they make? What tools can they use to improve their decision-making process? These are some of the questions this book addresses. During the past 35 years, as an entrepreneur and senior executive of several medium-sized Canadian hi-tech businesses, the author noticed that his decision-making processes were often based either on experience or on advice received from colleagues. Seldom were the decisions based on formal or informal academic-based methods. There is no substitute for years of experience in any human endeavor. However, tapping into some of the methods and lessons learned from personal experience can result in useful principles for others to follow. These principles are very useful, especially for entrepreneurs interested in building their businesses or executives looking for some additional help in acquiring a better decision-making mousetrap.




Risk Assessment and Decision Making in Business and Industry


Book Description

Building upon the technical and organizational groundwork presented in the first edition, Risk Assessment and Decision Making in Business and Industry: A Practical Guide, Second Edition addresses the many aspects of risk/uncertainty (R/U) process implementation. This comprehensive volume covers four broad aspects of R/U: general concepts, i




Medical Decision Making


Book Description

Medical Decision Making provides clinicians with a powerful framework for helping patients make decisions that increase the likelihood that they will have the outcomes that are most consistent with their preferences. This new edition provides a thorough understanding of the key decision making infrastructure of clinical practice and explains the principles of medical decision making both for individual patients and the wider health care arena. It shows how to make the best clinical decisions based on the available evidence and how to use clinical guidelines and decision support systems in electronic medical records to shape practice guidelines and policies. Medical Decision Making is a valuable resource for all experienced and learning clinicians who wish to fully understand and apply decision modelling, enhance their practice and improve patient outcomes. “There is little doubt that in the future many clinical analyses will be based on the methods described in Medical Decision Making, and the book provides a basis for a critical appraisal of such policies.” - Jerome P. Kassirer M.D., Distinguished Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine, US and Visiting Professor, Stanford Medical School, US







Games, Strategies and Decision Making


Book Description

This book on game theory introduces and develops the key concepts with a minimum of mathematics. Students are presented with empirical evidence, anecdotes and strategic situations to help them apply theory and gain a genuine insight into human behaviour. The book provides a diverse collection of examples and scenarios from history, literature, sports, crime, theology, war, biology, and everyday life. These examples come with rich context that adds real-world meat to the skeleton of theory. Each chapter begins with a specific strategic situation and is followed with a systematic treatment that gradually builds understanding of the concept.




Statistics for Business


Book Description

In Statistics for Business: Decision Making and Analysis, authors Robert Stine and Dean Foster of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, take a sophisticated approach to teaching statistics in the context of making good business decisions. The authors show students how to recognize and understand each business question, use statistical tools to do the analysis, and how to communicate their results clearly and concisely. In addition to providing cases and real data to demonstrate real business situations, this text provides resources to support understanding and engagement. A successful problem-solving framework in the 4-M Examples (Motivation, Method, Mechanics, Message) model a clear outline for solving problems, new What Do You Think questions give students an opportunity to stop and check their understanding as they read, and new learning objectives guide students through each chapter and help them to review major goals. Software Hints provide instructions for using the most up-to-date technology packages. The Second Edition also includes expanded coverage and instruction of Excel® 2010.




Sports Business Management


Book Description

This new edition of a widely adopted textbook equips students with a comprehensive understanding of the sport industry. With a focus on management, strategy, marketing and finance, the decision-making approach of the book emphasizes key concepts while translating them into practice. Content specific to each of the vital stakeholders in the sport business is included. Foster, O’Reilly and Dávila present a set of modular chapters supported with international examples. Supplementary materials available to instructors include mini-cases, full case studies, activities, in-class lecture materials and exercises to help students apply the decision-making approach to real-world situations. The book includes content about sport organizations, such as the Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, the European Premier Leagues and Major North American Professional Sport Leagues. Stanford cases are updated for the second edition and entirely new chapters cover the latest topics, including esports, sports gambling, fantasy sports and crisis management. This is an ideal textbook for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students of sports business and management.




Games and Decision Making


Book Description

Games and Decision Making, Second Edition, is a unique blend of decision theory and game theory. From classical optimization to modern game theory, authors Charalambos D. Aliprantis and Subir K. Chakrabarti show the importance of mathematical knowledge in understanding and analyzing issues in decision making. Through an imaginative selection of topics, Aliprantis and Chakrabarti treat decision and game theory as part of one body of knowledge. They move from problems involving the individual decision-maker to progressively more complex problems such as sequential rationality, auctions, and bargaining. By building each chapter on material presented earlier, the authors offer a self-contained and comprehensive treatment of these topics. Successfully class-tested in an advanced undergraduate course at the Krannert School of Management and in a graduate course in economics at Indiana University, Games and Decision Making, Second Edition, is an essential text for advanced undergraduates and graduate students of decision theory and game theory. The book is accessible to students who have a good basic understanding of elementary calculus and probability theory.




Responsible Business


Book Description

Until recently, profit has been the driving force for most business decisions. However, business leaders must now look more widely at their actions to assess the impact of these on people both inside and outside the organization as well as the environment. Responsible Business provides a seven step framework that eliminates internal bias and can be used to make decisions that increase profits, benefit staff and protect the environment as a whole. This means that personal values, ethics and morals can be aligned with business goals and overall company strategy. Responsible Business will enable business leaders to answer questions including: What values should be attached to financial and non-financial aspects of business decisions? How can these values be translated into concrete manageable actions? Which decisions best suit the strategic goals of the organization? Readers will have access to the business simulator tool which removes the complexity, ambiguity and stress of business decisions to allow leaders to manage the competing priorities in their organization and confidently make the best investment decisions for their business. With diverse case studies from organizations who have benefited from this approach, this book is essential reading for everyone needing to evaluate their investment decisions.




Business Strategy


Book Description

The effectiveness of a good strategy well implemented determines a business' future success or failure. Yet history is full of strategic decisions, big and small, that were ill-conceived, poorly organized and consequently disastrous. This updated guide looks at the whole process of strategic decision-making, from vision, forecasting, and resource allocation, through to implementation and innovation. Strategy is about understanding where you are now, where you are heading and how you will get there. There is no room for timidity or confusion. Although the CEO and the board decide a company's overall direction, it is the managers at all levels of the organization who will determine how the vision can be transformed into action. In short, everyone is involved in strategy. But getting it right involves difficult choices: which customers to target, what products to offer, and the best way to keep costs low and service high. And constantly changing business conditions inevitably bring risks. Even after business strategy has been developed, a company must remain nimble and alert to change, and view strategy as an ongoing and evolving process. The message of this guide is simple: strategy matters, and getting it right is fundamental to business success.