Introduction Formal Methods for Strategic Decision-making

Course description

This course provides formal methods (logical and game-theoretic) to describe and understand strategic decision-making in organizations and the network of issues in which decisions are embedded.

The main objective of the course is to help the students describe and understand the broad range of issues that are relevant to innovation management, focusing on a number of topics such as safety and risk, stakeholder management, law and economic regulation, different dimensions of innovative outcomes, etc. The formal tools which will be presented include logics to formalize reasoning under uncertainty, resource management and planning, and basic game theory to understand strategic reasoning.

Specifically, the set-up of the course uses the power of a formal approach to:

1. describe and analyze precisely which are the core determinants structuring processes and predicting outcomes. By working formally, students need to critically reflect on the choices they make, and be very explicit about them. This facilitates a deeper understanding of concepts and their interrelations
2. identify the essential elements of a given situation, on the basis of which make effective and insightful comparisons between seemingly very different contexts and processes
3. apply the tools and the analysis to concrete decision-making situations

Objectives

After taking this course the students will be able to:

• Analyse strategic decision making, concerning aspects of innovation of companies and organizations
• Understand the broad range of issues in which a given decision is embedded
• Make a formal analysis of the decision-making in a company using mathematic and logical tools they have familiarized themselves with
• Apply the above to a concrete case study

Assessment

• Written exam after week 4 (individual) (50%)
• Final assignment (team work) (50%0

Literature

TBA