Scissors and Rock: Game Theory for Those Who Manage

This book introduces readers to basic game theory as a tool to deal with strategic decision problems, helping them to understand the complexity of such problems – to extract a solution, if possible – and to manage the complexity by revising the game if appropriate. The authors discuss basic decision situations modeled as Prisoners’ Dilemma, Chicken Game, and Stag Hunt Game, as well as concepts like the Nash equilibrium, Trembling Hand Perfectness, Rationalizable Strategies and the Theory of Moves to introduce game theoretic thinking. Further, the book presents pioneers of strategic thinking, e.g., Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Adam Smith, and Goethe, and includes cases of conflict and cooperation to illustrate practical applications. Readers learn to apply game theory in business and in daily life – to manage their decision problems and to better understand the decision problems of others.

Manfred J. Holler is an Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Hamburg (Germany). He is the founding editor of, and managed the respected European Journal of Political Economy (1985-1993), and Homo Oeconomicus (1983-2015). He currently serves as an assessing editor or board member for several journals, such as The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Control and Cybernetics, the European Journal of Law and Economics, and Games. He is one of the Editors-in-Chief of Homo Oeconomicus. 

Barbara Klose-Ullmann holds a PhD. in Economics and worked for more than 25 years as a manager at a major German bank, where she participated in the bargaining for licenses in Eastern Europe. She has published a series of articles applying game theory to the analysis of strategic interaction in history, myths, and theatre plays, and authored books on health, in economic history of economics,and on game theory (co-authored with Manfred J. Holler).