Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine critically the accuracy of expert judgment, drawing on empirical evidence and theory from multiple disciplines. It suggests that counsel offered with confidence by experts might, under certain circumstances, be without merit, and presents approaches to assessing the accuracy of such counsel.

The paper synthesizes research findings on expert judgment drawn from multiple fields, including psychology, criminal justice, political science, and decision analysis. It examines internal and external factors affecting the veracity of what experts may judge to be matters of common sense, using a semiotic structure.

In multiple domains, including management, expert accuracy is, in general, no better than chance. Increased experience, however, is often accompanied by an unjustified increase in self‐confidence.

While the dynamic nature of decision making in organizations renders the development of a codified, reliable knowledge base potentially unachievable, there is value in recognizing these limitations, and employing tactics to explore more thoroughly both problem and solutions spaces

The paper's originality lies in its integration of recent, multiple‐disciplinary research as a basis for persuading decision makers of the perils of accepting expert advice without skepticism.

In his review of 30 years of research in Prospect Theory, Barberis (2013) notes that support for Prospect Theory had come mainly from the laboratory. In this paper, I write about a recurring phenomenon in real life that is consistent with Prospect Theory predictions in decision-making loss domain. The 60 cases noted in this paper are associated with specific risk seekers that had cost more than $140 billion (an average of $2.33 billion per case). Given space consider– ations, I provide synopses for 14 cases. A few of these cases have been discussed in the extant literature in connection with internal control, but were not considered from the perspective of Prospect Theory. It is striking that these cases are costly, all participants are young men, and almost all had followed the gambler’s martingale strategy – i.e., double down. While these cases are informative about risk-seeking behavior, they are not sufficiently systematic to be subjected to stylized archival research methods.

October 31, 1972 Negligence — Duty of care — Manufacturer — Purchaser's employees exposed to chemical containing carcinogen — Whether danger foreseeable.