Why Decisions Fail: Avoiding the Blunders and Traps That Lead to Debacles

Based on the his analysis of 400 strategic decisions made by top managers in areas such as products and services, pricing and markets, personnel policy, technology acquisition, and strategic reorganization, Nutt estimates that two-thirds of all decisions are based on failure-prone or questionable tactics. He uses the fifteen monumental decision-making disasters to illustrate the potential consequences of these common tactical errors and traps and then details successful alternative decision-making approaches.
Why Decisions Fail translates decades of award-winning research into practical terms that managers can use to improve their own decision-making practices.

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.