Complex business situations require careful decisions, and every decision entails risk. For managers, who walk along the cliff's edge every day, it is crucial to ask the right questions and analyze situations carefully before making decisions that will have a lasting impact on their organizations and their careers. But what are the right questions? What is the impact of rapid change and increasing complexity? How can managers use new technologies to improve decisions?

In Wharton on Making Decisions, distinguished researchers and thinkers from America's premier business school reveal the latest methods in analyzing alternative options and making choices-drawn from several decades of research into the psychological, interactive, and temporal aspects of decision making. They offer important insights on how to improve the decision-making process in different settings to produce outstanding outcomes.

Wharton on Making Decisions explains the role of personal emotion and everyday reasoning in managerial decision making; discusses ways to combine computer models with personal intuition; and investigates new tools for making decisions in increasingly complex environments. The Wharton experts analyze the impact of strategic learning, personal reputation, and deception in negotiated decisions. They also explore the impact of decision making on society as a whole, examining unexpected responses to medical testing, the impact of values on decisions, the phenomenon of information cascades, and how to deal with low-probability, high-consequence events.

Each chapter describes how decisions are actually made, presents an ideal scenario, and provides practical suggestions on how to make smarter decisions. The objective is to enable business managers to strengthen their decision-making skills and apply the latest methods of analysis and reasoning to decisions facing them.

Supplemented with real-world examples such as the fall of Barings Bank and the space shuttle Challenger disaster, Wharton on Making Decisions is must reading for every manager who wants to make the right decision the first time, every time.

Not the writer Edith Wharton, but the Wharton School (presumably of business) and other departments at the University of Pennsylvania is the source of advice on analyzing alternative options and making choices in complex business situations. The contributors are 16 University faculty members who have taken part in an ongoing informal weekly workshop in Decision Processes there.
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one of the best business books of 2001 (getAbstract, 15 January 2002)

This is the third book in Wiley's series of Wharton books presenting the perspectives and research of the Wharton faculty. Organized in part through Wharton's Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, the book assembles leading researchers from Wharton's business faculty to show how to apply the latest decision analysis thinking across four levels of action: personal, managerial, negotiator, and consumer.

"Wharton on Making Decisions provides a unique blend of theory and practical experience. The authors' insights are at many times humorous, always instructive, and definitely thought provoking. This book should be recommended reading for decision makers in today's fast-moving world where alternative choices are increasing in number, complexity, and importance."-Arthur D. Collins Jr., President and COO, Medtronic, Inc.

"This is a superb book that provides valuable insights for managers at all levels. No matter how many critical decisions we make, it is useful to be reminded of the intricacies of the process. Wharton on Making Decisions does just that."-Rakesh Gangwal, President and CEO, U.S. Airways

"Wharton on Making Decisions takes a thorough look at the hard and soft sides of decision making-the intuitive as well as the analytical. With the frenetic pace and complexities of decision making today, this is reading that no manager should miss."-Robert S. Morrison, Chairman, President, and CEO, The Quaker Oats Company

"The depth and breadth of the Wharton collection will help establish the case for the decision sciences to become a new major field of undergraduate and graduate studies at many universities (including my own at Harvard). Thanks, Wharton!" -Howard Raiffa, Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Managerial Economics Emeritus, Harvard Business School

"As managers, we would be pretty disappointed if someone could give us our batting average on the decisions we make. I have no doubt this book can improve your average."-Jean-Pierre Rosso, Chairman, CNH Global N.V.

"Wharton on Making Decisions offers penetrating insight into the art and science of decision making. Relevant to both business and personal life, it's a must read for any decision maker."-Alfred P. West Jr., Chairman and CEO, SEI Investments

STEPHEN J. HOCH is the John J. Pomerantz Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He previously taught at the University of Chicago.

HOWARD C. KUNREUTHER is the Cecelia Yen Koo Professor of Decision Sciences and Public Policy and Management, and Codirector of the Risk Management and Decision Process Center at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

ROBERT E. GUNTHER served as coordinating writer for Wharton on Dynamic Competitive Strategy and Wharton on Managing Emerging Technologies.

Chapter 1. A Complex Web of Decisions (Stephen J. Hoch and Howard C. Kunreuther).

PART I. PERSONAL DECISION MAKING.

Chapter 2. The Emotional Nature of Decision Trade-Offs (Mary Frances Luce, John W. Payne and James R. Bettman).

Chapter 3. Bumbling Geniuses: The Power of Everyday Reasoning in Multistage Decision Making (Robert J. Meyer and J. Wesley Hutchinson).

Chapter 4. Choosing Variety (Barbara E. Kahn and Andrea Morales).

PART II. MANAGERIAL DECISION MAKING.

Chapter 5. Combining Models with Intuition to Improve Decisions (Stephen J. Hoch).

Chapter 6. Reflective versus Expedient Decision Making: Views from East and West (Karen A. Jehn and Keith Weigelt).

Chapter 7. Decision Making in Complex Environments: New Tools for a New Age (Paul R. Kleindorfer).

Chapter 8. Managing Frames to Make Better Decisions (Paul J.H. Schoemaker and J. Edward Russo).

PART III. MULTIPARTY DECISION MAKING.

Chapter 9. Strategic Learning and Teaching (Colin F. Camerer and Teck H. Ho).

Chapter 10. Reputations in Negotiation (Steven Glick and Rachel Croson).

Chapter 11. Deception in Negotiations (Maurice E. Schweitzer).

Chapter 12. Electronic Bargaining: The Perils of E-Mail and the Promise of Computer-Assisted Negotiations (G. Richard Shell).

PART IV. IMPACT OF DECISION MAKING ON SOCIETY.

Chapter 13. A Change of Heart: Unexpected Responses to Medical Testing (John Hershey and David A. Asch).

Chapter 14. Values and Decisions (J Irwin and Jonathan Baron).

Chapter 15. Protective Decisions: Fear or Prudence (Howard C. Kunreuther).

Chapter 16. Learners or Lemmings: The Nature of Information Cascades (Felix Oberholzer-Gee).

Chapter 17. Split Personality: Inconsistencies in Private and Public Decisions (Mark V. Pauly).

Notes.

Index.