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xii Preface
accountancy, where recent changes in syllabuses have placed greater
emphasis on decision-making techniques, should also find the book
useful. Almost all the chapters are followed by discussion questions or
exercises, and we have included suggested answers to many of these
exercises at the end of the book.
Readers familiar with earlier editions of this book will note a number
of changes in this new edition. Inevitably, our views of the subject and
how it should be taught have also evolved over this period, while our
experience of using the book has enabled us to recognize where additions
or changes would enhance the reader’s understanding of the material.
This edition includes a new chapter (Chapter 11) on structured risk and
uncertainty management, while other chapters have been updated or
expanded. The chapter on how unaided decision makers make decisions
involving multiple objectives now precedes the chapter on SMART
so that the rationale for employing a structured method to handle
these problems is evident before readers encounter the method itself.
This chapter has also been expanded to include topics like fast and
frugal heuristics and reason-based choice. In addition, more material
on decision framing has been added in Chapter 14, while the coverage
of scenario planning (Chapter 15) and expert systems (Chapter 17) has
been extended and updated. Many of the other chapters have been
updated to reflect recent developments in the area and we have also
included more end-of-chapter exercises.
Inevitably, a large number of people provided support during the
writing of the original version of this book and subsequent editions. We
would particularly like to thank Larry Phillips (for his advice, encouragement
and the invaluable comments he made on a draft manuscript of
the first edition), Scott Barclay and Stephen Watson (for their advice during
the planning of the book), Kees van der Heijden, Alan Pearman and
John Maule (for their advice during the writing of the second edition)
and the staff at John Wiley, including Sarah Booth, for their help, advice
and encouragement during the writing of this third edition. The design
of this edition has also benefited from the comments of our students and
from the reports of a number of referees who reviewed our proposals.