Game Theory in Management

Architects and engineers can build models to test their ideas - why not managers? In Game Theory in Management: Modelling Business Decisions and Their Consequences, author Michael Hatfield presents a series of mathematically structured analogies to real-life business and economic interaction scenarios, and then, using modern game theory, he shows how to test common managerial technical approaches for their effectiveness. His results are astonishing: if game theory is correct then many commonly-held and taught management approaches and techniques are not only less effective than thought, they are actually detrimental in many areas where they are held to be beneficial. Game Theory in Management also examines managerial implications from network theory, cartage schemes, risk management theory, management information system epistemology, and other areas where the quantification and testing of business decisions can be employed to identify winning and losing stratagems.

Michael Hatfield, PMP, CCC, EVM, is probably best known as the author of the long running column in PMNetwork magazine, Variance Threshold. Besides PMNetwork, his work has appeared in the Project Management Journal, Cost Engineering, Gantthead, People on Projects, The Measurable News, and even in the Nuclear Weapons Journal. He is the author of Things Your PMO Is Doing Wrong (PMI Publishing, 2008). He has worked as an entry-level technician for the Air Force Weapons Laboratory's Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) test sites, as the director of a National Laboratory's Project Management Office overseeing a budget of $1.3 Billion (USD), and many very interesting jobs in-between. Michael can be reached at varthold@aol.com, and software solutions based on the theories put forth in this book are available at www.austintechpubs.com.

Part 1 Win Using the Rules of the Game; Chapter 1 Chess Openings and Risk Management; Chapter 2 Introduction to Game Theory, and a Code of Nature; Chapter 3 Game Theory and Cartage Schemes; Chapter 4 Network Theory and Games; Chapter 5 Win Using the Rules of the Game; Part 2 The Upper Limit; Chapter 6 Deconstructing Game Theory; Chapter 7 The Pieces Move Like This ...; Chapter 8 Deconstructing Risk Management; Chapter 9 On the Limits of Knowledge and Management Information; Part 3 The Structured Solution; Chapter 10 Managing to the Corner Cube; Chapter 11 Corner Cubes and Robustness; Chapter 12 Strategic Management and the Rehabilitation of Game Theory and Risk Management; Chapter 13;