Why Decisions Fail: Avoiding the Blunders and Traps that Lead to Debacles - Softcover

Nutt, Paul C.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1442966025 ISBN 13: 9781442966024

Publisher: ReadHowYouWant, 2012

Synopsis

People fear a decision that can turn into a debacle - a decision riddled with poor practices producing big losses that become public. This book reveals how a decision can turn into a fiasco and how to prevent this from happening.

About this title

About the Author:

Paul C. Nutt is a professor of Management Sciences and Public Policy and Management in the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. He received his Ph.D. (1974) from the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin–Madison and a B.S. and M.S. from the University of Michigan (1962, 1963), all in Industrial Engineering. He has written more than one hundred articles and six books. His current research interests include organizational decision making and radical change.
The decision-making stream of work, drawn upon to write this book, is taken from more than two decades of research into the decision-making practices used by people in organizations and how to improve them. Articles first appeared in 1984 and have continued at a steady pace since then, with several currently in press. In all, thirty-eight articles have appeared or will appear in referred journals and more are planned. This work has received numerous awards including two best theoretical/empirical paper awards from the Decision Sciences Institute, its top award, and several from the Academy of Management. His other work in decision making involves decision analysis, risk measurement, using MBTI and the Ennea- gram to identify a person’s decision style, Multiattribute Utilities, ethics, and learning.

From Library Journal:

Nutt (management, Ohio State Univ.) has spent 20 years collecting and studying more than 400 decisions made by upper-level management in corporate, government, and nonprofit organizations. Here, he selects 15 decisions that led to debacles and gives the background for each decision, what went wrong, and how the problem could have been approached differently. Through these case studies and other examples, he reveals a number of traps he has discerned in the decision-making process, including limiting the search for alternatives to a manager's preconceived ideas, failing to learn from mistakes by not accepting their existence, and misreading potential opposition. The debacles cited by Nutt, all well known, include locating EuroDisney outside Paris, mislabeling BeechNut apple juice, and Ford's showing an unwillingness to fix faulty Pinto gas tanks. Nutt's thorough dissection of the debacles and explanation of the decision-making process makes this book essential for libraries supporting management programs, while his clear writing style makes it accessible to patrons at larger public libraries. Lawrence R. Maxted, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: ReadHowYouWant
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1442966025
• ISBN 13: 9781442966024
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 560