Module BUSI41615: Management Decision Making

Department: Economics, Finance and Business (Business)

BUSI41615: Management Decision Making

Pre-requisites

Corequisites

Excluded Combinations

Aims

• to give students an in-depth understanding at an advanced level of the complexities of decision making, and how decisions can be improved by specialist techniques such as decision analysis and scenario thinking;
• emphasis will be placed on critically evaluating both the quality of management judgement and the assumptions underlying decision aiding techniques.

Content

• How people choose between alternatives;
• Improving choice using multi-attribute vale analysis techniques;
• Psychological pitfalls in choice: overconfidence, escalation of commitment, shift-to-risk in decision making;
• Decision analysis - methods and techniques for making decisions that involve uncertainties;
• Scenario planning versus decision analysis - creativity and the framing of decisions;
• Decision making in management teams - pitfalls and remedies.

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of this module, student should have:
• a specialist knowledge of the pitfalls in how individuals and management teams make decisions;
• a critical appreciation of the assumptions, implications, and limitations of decision analysis.

• By the end of this module, student should have:
• advanced skills in, and a critical understanding of, the techniques of decision analysis.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• A combination of lectures, case studies and workshops is appropriate for conveying the specialist knowledge and advanced skills set out in the Learning Outcomes.
• The summative assessment will test students' ability to apply the techniques they have learned to the analysis of a particular problem.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment