Judgment in Managerial Decision Making [Paperback]

Max H. Bazerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1997 | ISBN-10: 0471178071 | ISBN-13: 978-0471178071 | Edition: 4

Decision making plays a crucial role in managerial life. But too often, our decisions are clouded by personal biases and uncertainty. This brief book shows readers how to identify their own biases in order to make better decisions. Experimental in approach, the book teaches decision making by involving the reader in decision quizzes.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Can You Really Improve Your Judgment and Decision-Making Ability? Situations requiring careful judgment are continually facing you throughout your daily lives and are a major component of managerial work at all levels of the corporate ladder. In any organization, this constitutes a critical human resource for the firm. While to some extent, judgment may be considered an innate ability, it is generally believed that training can offer significant improvement on the quality of managerial judgment. Judgment in Managerial Decision Making provides that training to students by creating an awareness of the decision-making process, by allowing students to change their decision-making processes, and by offering strategies for improving these processes so that they become part of the reader’s permanent behavior. Re-written as a result of feedback from both colleagues and students, the fourth edition of this classic book provides even more interesting and contemporary examples of real-world decisions. This edition includes a new chapter on motivational biases (chapter 6), which examines how our motivations affect the rationality of our thoughts, and examines managerial decision-making from both individual and multi-party perspectives. By making use of these chapters, the individual can make permanent improvements to future decisions.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 4 edition (July 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471178071
• ISBN-13: 978-0471178071
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #909,768 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Max H. Bazerman
Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration
www.people.hbs.edu/mbazerman

In addition to being the Straus Professor at the Harvard Business School, Max is formally affiliated with the Kennedy School of Government, the Psychology Department, and the Program on Negotiation.

Max's research focuses on decision making in negotiation, and improving decision making in organizations, nations, and society. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of eighteen books (including Negotiation Genius [with Deepak Malhotra], Bantam Books, September 2007) and over 200 research articles and chapters. He is a member of the editorial boards of the American Behavioral Scientist, Journal of Management and Governance, Mind and Society, Negotiations and Conflict Management Research, and The Journal of Behavioral Finance. Also, he is a member of the international advisory board of the Negotiation Journal.

From 2002-2008, Max was consistently named one of the top 40 authors, speakers, and teachers of management by Executive Excellence. He was 'Teacher of the Year' by the Executive Masters Program of the Kellogg School. In 2003, Max received the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award from Harvard University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In 2006, Max received an honorary doctorate from the University of London (London Business School), the Kulp-Wright Book Award from the American Risk and Insurance Association for Predictable Surprises (with Michael Watkins), and the Life Achievement Award from the Aspen Institute's Business and Society Program. In 2008, Max was named as Ethisphere's 100 Most Influential in Business Ethics, was named one of Daily Kos' Heroes from the Bush Era for going public about how the Bush Administration corrupted the RICO Tobacco trial, received the International Institute of Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) Outstanding Book Award, and received the Distinguished Educator Award from the Academy of Management.
His former doctoral students have accepted positions at leading business schools throughout the United States, including the Kellogg School at Northwestern, the Fuqua School at Duke, the Johnson School at Cornell, Carnegie-Mellon University, Stanford University, the University of Chicago, Notre Dame, Columbia, and the Harvard Business School.

His professional activities include projects with Abbott, Aetna, Alcar, Alcoa, Allstate, Ameritech, Amgen, Apax Partners, Asian Development Bank, AstraZeneca, AT&T, Aventis, BASF, Bayer, Becton Dickenson, Biogen, Boston Scientific, BP, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Business Week, Celtic Insurance, Chevron, Chicago Tribune, City of Chicago, Deloitte and Touche, Dial, Ernst and Young, First Chicago, Gemini Consulting, General Motors, Harris Bank, Home Depot, Hyatt Hotels, IBM, John Hancock, Johnson & Johnson, Kohler, KPMG, Lucent, The May Company, McKinsey, Medtronics, Merrill Lynch, Monitor, Motorola, National Association of Broadcasters, Nordstjernen, Pfizer, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, R. P. Scherer, Sara Lee, Siemens, Sprint, Sulzermedica, Synergen, The Nature Conservancy, Unicredito, Union Bank of Switzerland, Wilson Sporting Goods, Xerox, Young Presidents Organization, World Bank and Zurich Insurance.

Max's consulting, teaching, and lecturing includes work in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Barbados, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, and the UK.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Summary - Judgment In Managerial Decision Making, November 9, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Judgment in Managerial Decision Making (Paperback)

Max Bazerman had one central purpose in mind when he wrote his book, Judgment In Managerial Decision Making. He hoped to improve the judgment and decision making skills of his audience, whether they be managers of multi-billion dollar corporations or consumers deciding how much to offer a salesman for a new car. Through the use of vivid real-world examples Max Bazerman identifies systematic ways in which judgment and decision making skills deviate from rationality under uncertain conditions. The end result is that the reader can readily comprehend the concepts outlined in the book and easily apply them to his or her own life.

The only major weakness in the book has to do with its discussion of the multiparty decision-making process. Because of the complex dynamics of these multiparty situations, Bazerman is forced to limit his coverage to only a select number of issues that he believes are especially pertinent to understanding decision making among several groups. Academics have also spent less formal research time on multiparty decision-making versus two-party and individual decision making. Therefore, the number of real-world contemporary examples are quite limited, making the reader less inclined to believe the results.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Makes you think about your own decision making process., November 6, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Judgment in Managerial Decision Making (Paperback)

In his book, Judgment in Managerial Decision Making, Max Bazerman applies behavioral decision research into an organizational setting. He acknowledges that even though the rational decision-making process will lead to optimal decisions, the process is too time consuming to use in reality. Therefore, managers must rely on their intuitive judgment to find satisficing solutions to the problems they confront on a daily basis. The first half of the book examines the reader's judgment by explaining how the utilization of heuristics, rules of thumb used by managers to simplify problem solving in complex situations, can lead to irrational decisions when inappropriately applied. Cognitive biases are the cause of irrational decisions when heuristics are used improperly. In addition, Bazerman also offers an analysis of how uncertainty, escalation of commitment, and concern for fairness affect managerial decision-making. The second half of the book addresses how the decision-making process relates to both two-party and multiparty situations. Bazerman discusses the difficulty individuals face when trying to act rationally in competitive negotiations. He also describes the complexities work groups or project teams face when they hold a cooperative as well as a competitive position. The final chapter presents four strategies for improving the decision-making process. The first and second strategies are eliminating biases, and acquiring experience and expertise through feedback on the outcome of previous decisions. Both strategies are designed to alter intuitive responses to various decision-making situations. The third and fourth strategies offer techniques for improving decisions using linear models and accounting for the biases that influence the decisions of others. In his conclusions, Bazerman states that "the manager is likely rewarding behaviors that may not be functional in the future" by rewarding results rather than the decision-making process. Therefore, he recommends that managers reward employees for good decisions rather than results. Improving judgment and decision-making abilities is a step in the right direction towards making better decisions.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Real Jewel in Decision Making Theory, January 24, 2004

By 

"rarellano" (Vinhedo, São Paulo Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Judgment in Managerial Decision Making (5th Edition) (Paperback)

There are many quantitative books on Decision Making Theory but this book deals basically with the subjective aspects of Decision Making. I used it at the University of São Paulo as textbook for a graduate class on Decision Making under Uncertainty together with Clemen & Reilly's book "Making Hard Decisions".

Bazerman's focus on common decion biases and heuristics makes us think a lot about how we make decisions and normally has nothing to do with rational quantitative "perfect world" decision making normally teached at business schools. Do read this book if Decision Making Theory is important for you, this is really a classic on this subject!!!! With less than 200 pages you really can't afford not reading it.