INF 2149 Administrative Decision Making in Information Organizations

Lecture Slides

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1. Introduction to Decision Making
   • Decision Process
   • Decision Tree
   • Good Decision Making

2. Heuristics and Biases

   Students in the current section should go to Course Schedule page to download PDF of slides on Heuristics and Biases.

   • Representativeness Heuristic
   • Availability Heuristic
   • Anchoring Heuristic
   • Representativeness Example
   • Framing Example (1)
   • Framing Example (2)
   • Prospect Theory
   • Learning from Experience
   • Guarding Against Biases
   • Emotions and Decision Making
   • Emotional Intelligence

   • Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart, precis of the book and research by Gerd Gigerenzer, Peter Todd, and the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin.

   • Video Film: Judgment and Decision Making

3. Groupthink

   Students in the current section should go to Course Schedule page to download PDF of slides on Groupthink.

   • Groupthink Theoretical Framework
   • Preventing Groupthink (1)
   • Preventing Groupthink (2)

   • Read before class:
     Case Discussion: NASA Space Shuttle Challenger Launch Decision, January, 1986.

   • Video Film: Groupthink in the Challenger Launch Decision

   • Addtional information on the Challenger Case

4. Rational Model of Decision Making

   Students in the current section should go to Course Schedule page to download PDF of slides on Bounded Rationality.

   • Bounded Rationality
   • Rational Choice (1)
   • Decision Premises
   • Rational Choice (2)
   • Rational Choice (3)

   • Organizational Decision Making
   • Organizational Behavior in Decision Making 1
   • Organizational Behavior in Decision Making 2
   • Decision Routines
   • Organizational Adaptation

   • Read before class:
     Case discussion: Designing Decision Premises and Decision Routines - FI Admission Process

   • Case discussion: Science of muddling through.
     Read and discuss the paper by Charles Lindblom on decision making in government organizations (Lindblom, 1959).

5. Process Model

   Students in the current section should go to Course Schedule page to download PDF of slides on Process Model.

   • Process Model Figure
   • Strategic Decision Process Model
   • Dynamic Factors
   • Support Routines

   • Process Model Exercise

   • Read before class:
     Case discussion: AOL - Time Warner Merger. Read the following articles from the New York Times (Jan 16, 2000). Use the Process Model to discuss the events, phases, and cycles in the unfolding of the merger decision.
     • Price of joining old and new was core issue in AOL deal [cache]
     • How blind alleys led old media to new [cache]

6. Political Model

   Students in the current section should go to Course Schedule page to download PDF of slides on Political Decision Making.

   • Political Decision Making Figure
   • Organizational Dependencies
   • Organizations as Coalitions
   • Procedural Rationality in Political Decision Making
   • Building Power Base
   • Exercising Power in Decision Making

   • Read before class:
     Case discussion: Cuban Missile Crisis. Read the following, and use the Political Model to discuss the events, players and actions in the development of a US response to the crisis.
     • "Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis" (Allison and Zelikow, 1999): Chapter 6, pg. 325-347.

     • The Real Thirteen Days, material assembled by the National Security Archive (including audio recordings of the ExCom meetings).
       Read the Introduction to the NSA Documents Reader, especially the section "Revising the History of the Crisis."

     • Video clip of JFK's remarks to the nation during the crisis on October 22, 1962.

7. Garbage Can Model

   Students in the current section should go to Course Schedule page to download PDF of slides on Garbage Can Model.

   • Organized Anarchy
   • Garbage Can Model Figure
   • Garbage Can Decision Making
   • Consequences of Garbage Can Model
   • Garbage Can as Metaphor (1)
   • Garbage Can as Metaphor (2)

   • James March interview on the Garbage Can Model, "Ideas As Art" HBR October 2006, p. 88.

   • Read before class:
     Case discussion: Elimination of Speech Program in a University. Read case study in March and Olsen (1976) Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations: pg. 254-258.

   • Case discussion: Book Publishing Decisions. Read Levitt and Nass (1989) article that appeared in the Administrative Science Quarterly.

8. Contingency Framework

   Students in the current section should go to Course Schedule page to download PDF of slides on Contingency Framework.

   • Models of Decision Making
   • Example Solutions to Class Discussion Cases
   • Information Seeking and Use in Decision Making
   • Implications for Decision Making
   • Practical Realities of Organizational Decision Making

9. Group Decision Making Exercise

   In class acitivity on Group Decision Making.

10. Decision Escalations
    • Practical Realities of Organizational Decision Making
    • Escalation of Commitment in Decision Situations [PDF]

    • Case discussion: Expo 86, Vancouver. Read case study based on: Ross, Jerry, and Barry M. Staw. 1986. Expo 86: An Escalation Prototype. Administrative Science Quarterly 31 (2): 274-297. Also see: Staw, Barry M., and Jerry Ross. 1987. Knowing When to Pull the Plug. Harvard Business Review 65 (2):68-74.

11. Introduction to Operations Research
    (Optional class, may not be presented in every section.)
    • The OR Approach
    • OR Applications
    • OR in Libraries
    • Critical Path Method (1)
    • Critical Path Method (2)
    • Linear Programming Example (1)
    • Linear Programming Example (2)
    • Linear Programming Model
    • Queuing Theory
    • Queuing Example
    • Decision Theory Example (1)
    • Decision Theory Example (2)
    • Decision Theory Model