Strategic Decision Making: A Best Practice Blueprint - Softcover

Wright, George

Softcover

ISBN 10: 047148699X ISBN 13: 9780471486992

Publisher: Wiley, 2001

Synopsis

Good decision making is crucial to good management and successful strategic planning. Sadly the decision making capabilities within organisations are often poor. Using a fascinating and very readable combination of psychological theory, pencil-and-paper thought problems, and material from contemporary media, George Wright demonstrates why high-profile strategic disasters occur and how to prevent your own organisation from making similar mistakes. Case studies include Marks & Spencer, Dyson, Baring's Bank and the Millennium Dome.

About this title

About the Author

George Wright has held Faculty positions at LBS and Leeds Business School, and is currently at Strathclyde Graduate School of Business, where he consults to major blue-chip clients such as Philips and IBM. He has conducted extensive research into the role of judgement in forecasting and decision making, with particular emphasis on the simplification strategies of managers which lead to poor decisions.
He has published both academic and trade books on forecasting and decision making, and contributed to various journals within the field. He founded the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making with Wiley in 1988 and is Associate Editor of the Wiley journal Journal of Forecasting and the journal International Journal of Forecasting.

From the Back Cover

* Why are large organisations, including household names, sometimes accused of 'losing the plot' in their business strategy?

* Why do organisations fail to exploit new opportunities such as that presented by Dyson's innovative vacuum cleaner design?

* Why were funds poured into the UK Dome and the City of London Taurus computer project when it was clear that 'good money' was following 'bad'?
The answers will surprise you. Using psychological theory, paper and pencil 'thought problems', and well-chosen quotations from newspaper articles written at the time, the book demonstrates and explains the causes of these 'strategic blunders'. It also shows how to recognise and avoid your own organisation making the same mistakes.

Providing clear guidance with a number of tried and tested methods and techniques, the author shows how organisational decision making can be improved by avoiding delaying tactics and a 'blame culture' and how scenario planning can be used to overcome management overconfidence in predicting the future.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 047148699X
• ISBN 13: 9780471486992
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160