Prof. Zur Shapira
NYU STERN

Topic : Risk taking & Managerial Decision making

Zur Shapira is William Berkley Professor of Entrepreneurship and Professor of Management at the Stern School of Business, New York University. He was born in Tel Aviv, raised and educated in Jerusalem and graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology and Management from the University of Rochester, and has taught at the University of Rochester, Hebrew University, Carnegie-Mellon University, University of California at Berkeley and the University of Chicago before joining New York University in 1988. He has been a Research Fellow at the International Institute of Management in Berlin, a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, and a Summer Resident at the Rockefeller Foundation study center in Italy. He is a Fellow of The American Psychological Society.

Prof. Shapira is best known professionally for his work on risk taking and organisational decision making. Among his publications are the books - Risk Taking: A Managerial Perspective (1995), Organisational Decision Making (1996), Technological Learning: Oversights and Foresights (1997), and Organisational Cognition (2000). He has been a speaker at major academic and private institutions and professional associations such as The Academy of Management, The Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance, The Israel Management Center, Arthur Andersen and the Cigna Corporation. He appeared on BBC worldwide television, on CNBC and on Israel National Radio.

Prof. Shapira has been a consultant to various business firms, governmental agencies, and non-profit organisations including: Arthur Andersen, The Electronics Corporation of Israel, El-Al Israel Airlines, Bank of Israel, Bank Leumi, Intel, Teva Pharmaceutical Co., The Center for Strategic Studies (Tel Aviv), The National Institute of Defense (Israel), Daimler-Benz Aerospace Company, and the Thomas Register Company.

Session Plans:

Session 1: Risk taking in organisational decisions

• Individual and group level effects on organisational decision making
• Judgment, incentives and penalties in organisational decision making
• Illustrative cases: Decisions on innovation, evaluation of risky decisions by board members, strategic surprises

Session 2: The control of risk taking in organisations

• The effects of goals and targets on decision making in organisations
• The management of risks taken by organisational factors on behalf of their firms in financial markets: Cases from the New York Financial Markets
•The effects of competition on decision making.

Session 3: Decisions by groups and committees in organisations

• Comparing decisions by groups and individuals
• Factors affecting group decision making
• How to improve decisions by groups and committees in organisations
• Overall summary and wrap up