Johannes Siebert

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  • Prioritization model for the early-stage development pipeline to enable holistic portfolio management for a pharma company

    Prioritization model for the early-stage development pipeline to enable holistic portfolio management for a pharma company

    The client was seeking a way to evaluate early development projects that would take an integrated view of the portfolio and enable consistent trade-offs. The solution was a multi-attribute prioritization methodology to enable holistic portfolio management and value-based decision making. The innovative methodology uses multi-attribute utility theory and value-focused thinking within the framework of decision quality, providing a consistent evaluation of various early-stage projects within a heterogeneous set of disease areas, thereby enabling trade-offs based on agreed-to decision criteria.

    We started the project with a brainstorming/ issue raising session and interviews with key stakeholders to define the appropriate frame, i.e., the purpose, scope, and perspective, consistent with Decision Quality. Further, we challenged the decision makers in interviews to identify their objectives. Referring to value-focused thinking, we created an objectives hierarchy as a means ends network. Using this network and the scientific expertise of client teams, we created meaningful scales to operationalize the decision makers’ fundamental objectives. We facilitated trade-off discussions with the decision makers using the www.entscheidungsnavi.de/en. We built an evaluation model based on a structure that assessed the fundamental objectives and its trade-offs using multi-attribute utility theory. Evaluating a diverse set of pilot projects with a client’s expert group, we challenged the robustness of the methodology. With the backing of the organization, we assessed the entire portfolio of projects using this new methodology. We analyzed the portfolio and identified key impacts of the decision – the level of innovation of the portfolio. We facilitated decision-focused discussions with decision makers by separating discussions about scientific expectations from discussions about strategic preferences and beliefs. Ultimately, at the end of this group decision-making process, the decision makers made a portfolio decision.

    The Strategic Decisions Group served as principal investigator in this project.

  • Give yourself a nudge: How to ‘nudge’ yourself to systematically make better decisions professionally and personally

    Give yourself a nudge: How to ‘nudge’ yourself to systematically make better decisions professionally and personally

    Universität Bayreuth, Pressemitteilung Nr. 115/2020 vom 21. August 2020

    Decisions are the only way we can actively influence what is important to us or our organization. Everything else ‘happens’. It is therefore surprising that decision-makers leave much potential for improvement untapped. In the September City Talk, numerous tips will be given on how we can systematically make better decisions and thus achieve what is important to us. About it speaks Prof. (FH) PD Dr. habil. Johannes Siebert from the Management Center Innsbruck.

    Topic:
    Give yourself a nudge: How to ‘nudge’ yourself to systematically make better decisions professionally and personally

    Referent:
    Prof. (FH) PD Dr. habil. Johannes Siebert, Management Center Innsbruck

    Date / Time:
    Wednesday, September 2, 2020, from 6 pm

    Am Mittwoch, 2. September 2020, steht der Referent ab 19.00 Uhr für eine live-Diskussion via Zoom mit Zuschauerinnen und Zuschauern zur Verfügung: https://www.uni-bayreuth.de/de/campusleben/terminkalender/stadtgespraeche

    To the lecture

    “Decisions are the only way to actively influence what’s important to you or your organization. Everything else happens. Therefore, it is surprising how much potential for improvement decision-makers leave unused,” says the speaker of the September City Talk, Prof. (FH) PD Dr. habil. Johannes Siebert of the management center Innsbruck. According to Siebert, one way to help people make better decisions is to nudge them. Richard Thaler received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2017 for this approach to behavioral economics. According to Siebert, so-called decision architects set a framework so that people increasingly make decisions that are good for themselves, but also for the community, while ensuring freedom of choice. “If, for example, in a cafeteria,” Siebert explains, “healthy foods are presented in an appealing way directly in the entrance area, then more healthy foods are usually consumed. However, it’s not always possible for a decision architect to ‘nudge’ you, or you may not want to. In the talk, I’ll show how you can ‘nudge’ yourself to systematically make better choices, and how to achieve what’s important to you. To do this, I’ll share numerous, easy-to-apply tips that, if followed consistently, will result in you being more satisfied with your life.”

    To the speaker

    Prof. (FH) PD Dr. habil. Johannes Siebert studied business administration at the University of Bayreuth (graduating in 2005), received his PhD in 2010 (topic ‘Multicriteria Decision Making’) and his habilitation in 2015 (topic ‘Behavioral Operations Research and Decision Analysis’). Since August 2017, Siebert has been teaching and conducting research at the Management Center Innsbruck in Austria. In addition, he is a private lecturer at the Faculty of Law and Economics at the University of Bayreuth.

    The Bayreuth alumnus is considered one of the leading experts in the field of ‘Behavioral Operations Research and Decision Making’: In his research, Siebert investigates human and organizational decision-making behavior and develops methods for decision-makers, from individuals to large organizations, to make better informed His research is published in leading journals.

    Siebert has more than ten years of experience in applied decision research. He has worked on and managed research and consulting projects for national and international clients from business, politics and society. For example, he has advised decision-makers at the Pentagon (USA) and the California Department of Transportation as well as board members of large German corporations. In the project ‚KLUGentscheiden‘, he and his team develop decision-making trainings and conduct them with students in Upper Franconia and the Upper Palatinate in graduating classes. Recently, the scientist was accepted into the advisory board of the renowned ‘Alliance for Decision Education’ around Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman. Prof. (FH) PD Dr. habil. Johannes Siebert will use his expertise to help children and young people learn to make conscious and well-considered decisions away from the usual ‘try and error’.

    Source: University of Bayreuth, Pressemitteilung Nr. 115/2020, 22. August 2020 (Translation)

  • Minimizing the impact of fake news on the real world by debiasing the belief perseverance bias

    Minimizing the impact of fake news on the real world by debiasing the belief perseverance bias

    Fake news is false news stories packaged and published as if they were genuine with the intention to mislead the reader to damage an agency, an entity, or a person or to increase an internet click revenue. During the 2016 US presidential election campaign, fake news became a global phenomenon, in particular, due to the growing use of social media as a source for news. The proliferation of fake news online has been of increased concern to the European Parliament since. However, no agreement on how to tackle this issue has been reached. 

    Debiasing refers to attempts to eliminate or at least reduce biases. Only a few debiasing methods have been introduced for the belief-perseverance and confirmation biases so far. Although it was suggested already in early publications that effective debiasing methods should include a combination of various debiasing techniques, scholars have instead focused on isolated debiasing techniques. Moreover, the already limited experimental empirical research on debiasing motivational biases has focused primarily on investigating the efficacy of single debiasing methods without comparing the efficacy of different debiasing methods and without studying their efficiency. Due to missing experimentally-driven comparisons of debiasing methods within one experiment, there are only limited implications for practical applications in terms of which debiasing method to use in order to achieve the best debiasing effect. 

    The PerFake project aims to fill in this research gap and contribute to the advancement in the research field by: 

    1. improving the existing debiasing methods, developing new ones, and combining them; 
    2. comparing the efficacy of various debiasing methods and their combinations;
    3. measuring and comparing the efficiency of multiple debiasing methods and their combinations. 

    The efficacy and efficiency of the debiasing methods will be tested in two questionnaire-based experiments in order to derive recommendations. For the first experiment, we will use and adapt an experimental setting from the literature in which belief perseverance has already been demonstrated. The experimental setting of the second experiment will then be designed in a way to be as close as possible to the fake news environment in order to be able to derive conclusions and recommendations that are applicable in practice.

  • International recognition for MCI Professor Johannes Siebert

    International recognition for MCI Professor Johannes Siebert

    Renowned Alliance for Decision Education around Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler accepts Johannes Siebert into Advisory Council | Recognition for research achievements in the area of individual and organizational decision behavior.

    MCI-News 12. August 2020

    A high-ranking recognition has recently been announced at the Entrepreneurial School®: Johannes Siebert, Professor at the MCI Department of Business and Management and an internationally recognized expert in the study of individual and organizational decision-making behavior, has been accepted into the top-class advisory board of the renowned Alliance for Decision Education around Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman. With his expertise, he will contribute to helping children and young people learn to make conscious and well-considered decisions away from the usual “try & error”.

    The inclusion of Johannes Siebert in the Advisory Council of the Alliance for Decision Education will help to further increase the international networking and visibility of the MCI. Workshops on the subject of decision making for schoolchildren, which Johannes Siebert is developing for Bavaria as part of a research project, are also to be offered in Tyrol and Austria in the medium term.

    Making decisions is perceived as a complex task by many individuals and organizations. Reasons for this are (i) that decision-making involves a certain amount of cognitive effort, (ii) the decision-making situations are not fully understood, or (iii) simply no methods for solving decision-making problems are known or mastered.

    However, only by (pro)actively making decisions is it possible to influence what is important. Otherwise, neither an individual decision-maker nor an organization can successfully implement its visions in the long term. Against this background, it is astonishing that many individuals and organizations have only a very limited interest in proactive decision-making and often have only limited skills and competences in making decisions.

    As a result, many individuals and organizations make suboptimal decisions and then have to deal with the consequences. These consequences can be particularly significant for children and young people and can accompany them throughout their lives. For example, the bad decision to get into a car whose driver, contrary to the agreement, has drunk alcohol can change a person’s life for the worse. The same applies to the positive. Young people can lay the foundation for their future life through their decisions. In school, a lot of information relevant to decision-making is conveyed, but pupils are not shown how decisions are (should be) made. Therefore most young people make decisions according to the try and error principle.

    This is exactly where the Alliance for Decision Education comes in. It is a renowned American non-profit organization with the vision that better decisions lead to better lives and ultimately to a better society. To this end, they organize various courses in which children and young people learn to make more conscious decisions. Besides, they interact with political decision-makers at all levels to anchor decision making in the educational canon in the long term. These projects are strategically supported by the so-called Advisory Council, which is made up of leading experts from the fields of behavioral economics, decision theory, psychology, risk management, and child psychiatry. Many students in the fields of business administration and economics, for example, are certainly familiar with the work of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman or Paul Slovic.

    Johannes Siebert is a Professor at the Department of Economics and Management at MCI | The Entrepreneurial School®. He habilitated at the University of Bayreuth, where he also works as a private lecturer, in the fields of Behavioral Operations Research and Decision Analysis. He is considered an internationally recognized expert in the research of individual and organizational decision behavior. For example, he has been able to show that good, proactive decision-making improves life satisfaction. In a current research project, he is investigating the extent to which proactive decision-making can be trained in courses at universities and schools. At the MCI he teaches the basics of decision theory in five courses of study. Besides, he heads a research project in Bavaria in which workshops for school students are designed and conducted.

    Links:
    https://alliancefordecisioneducation.org/learn/about-the-alliance 
    https://alliancefordecisioneducation.org/learn/about-the-alliance/team/johannes-siebert

  • Decisions: problems or opportunities? How you can prevent unpleasant decision situations

    Decisions: problems or opportunities? How you can prevent unpleasant decision situations

    Dr. Johannes Siebert, Universität Bayreuth

    Veröffentlichung

    Siebert, Johannes U.; Keeney, Ralph. “Decisions: Problems or Opportunities? How you can prevent unpleasant decision situations”, Scientific Contributions, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Studium, June 2020, 49(6), 1-6

    Many individuals and organizations face and address decision situations as problems, which are to be solved. However, decisions are the only way to influence actively what is important. This paper differentiates decision problems and decision opportunities and illustrates how proactive, value-focused decision making can create attractive decision opportunities and help reduce the chance of some unwanted decision problems.

  • Identifying and structuring of the objectives of the terrorist group Islamic State

    Identifying and structuring of the objectives of the terrorist group Islamic State

    • Dr. Johannes Siebert, Universität Bayreuth

    Veröffentlichung

    • Siebert, Johannes; von Winterfeldt, Detlof; John, Richard. “Identifying and Structuring the Objectives of the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) and its Followers.” Decision Analysis (INFORMS), 13(1), 26-50. (Link)
    • Nagata, M., Abbas, A., Atran, S., Braniff, B., Bringuel, A., al-Chalabi, M., …. & Corman, S. (2014). Multi-‐Method Assessment of ISIL. (Link)
    • https://www.informs.org/Blogs/DECA-Blogs/DECA-Review/Identifying-and-Structuring-the-Objectives-of-the-Islamic-State-of-Iraq-and-the-Levant-ISIL-and-its-Followers (Link)
    • „Wer dem IS folgt, ist ein Loser“, in Welt am Sonntag, No. 4, 24th of January, 2016. (Link)
    • „Was macht den IS für Anhänger attraktiv?“, N24.de, 25th of January, 2016, (Link)

    In summer 2014, the terrorist group Islamic State was one of the most severe threats for the civilian population in the Middle East as well as in the West. The American government did not had a clear strategy how to deal with this new threat. Pres. Obama even admitted this in public (“We don’t yet have a complete strategy” for fighting the Islamic State in Iraq; 28. August 2014, in Washington Post).

    One of the main problems of the military leadership in the US was that the means, which were successful to protect the civilians against a terrorist group Al Qaeda, did not had the same impact to protect civilians against the terrorist group Islamic State. In the retrospective view, the main reason was that both terrorist groups pursue fundamentally different strategies. In order to pursue meaningful and effective measures to protect civilians it was necessary to identify the objectives of the terrorist group Islamic state. If you know what your opponent wants, it is much easier for you to prevent it.

    General Nagata, Head of Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) sent at the end of August 2014 an urgent request to the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at University of Southern California to find out, what the terrorist group Islamic State wants, i.e., the objectives the leaders of the followers, and why they are so attractive to their followers. This task is particularly difficult, because there is no access to the leaders and members of the terrorist group Islamic state for interviewing them. Therefore, the Office of the Joint Chief of Staff in the Pentagon reached out to 59 subject matter experts with backgrounds in terrorism research, Islam, political science, military strategy, the Middle East, peace research, etc. and conducted semi-structured interviews. Prof. von Winterfeldt, one of the worldwide leading counterterrorism researchers and founding director of CREATE, analyzed these interviews to identify and structure the objectives of the leadership and the followers of Islamic State. Prof. Siebert took the lead in the second, separate effort solely based on open sources available on the Internet, for example primary sources such as transcribed speeches of Islamic State leaders or secondary sources such as newspaper articles or scientific papers. In the next step, both separately and independently derived objectives hierarchies were compared and merged. There was a great deal of overlap and similarity.  However, the researchers also found some notable differences, especially regarding the followers’ objectives, which could be explained primarily by the different sources used.

    The results indicate that Islamic State’s leaders pursue four strategic objectives “Establish a Caliphate in Iraq and the Levant”, “Control and Govern the Caliphate”, “Expand Islam and Sharia Law Worldwide”, and “Recreate the Power and Glory of (Sunni) Islam”. The followers’ objectives can be partitioned into three strategic objectives: Humanitarian Fulfillment, Religious Fulfillment and Personal Fulfillment. The objectives identified from the subject matter expert interviews were similar to those identified from Islamic State leaders’ statements and the Internet. However, the Internet search revealed many more personal objectives of Islamic State followers. The results further indicate that Islamic State`s leadership objectives are closely aligned with those of its followers. There also is a sharp contrast between the objectives of Islamic State and those of Al Qaeda, particularly Islamic State’s emphasis on occupying and controlling territories on Iraq and Syria vs. Al Qaeda’s focus on worldwide jihad. The objectives hierarchy of the leaders of Islamic state is illustrated in the following figure.

    This study resulted in a successful publication in the INFORMS journal Decision Analysis. In addition, the editor of Decision Analysis, found that the importance of the study warranted the creation of a media campaign through special announcements and a blog, the first time that this journal has made such an effort. Perhaps more importantly, the work made an impact on a major policy area by providing a report to General Nagata and the US Special Operations Unit in the Middle East. The study was nominated for the final of the Practice Award of the INFORMS Decision Analysis Society because of the high level of novelty of the methods to systematically identify and structure objectives of an organization when there is no access to the decision-maker and the high impact on the real world. A detailed description of the method and results, the project report and selected media coverage can be found in the following

  • Developing methods for identifying, structuring and comparing objectives

    Developing methods for identifying, structuring and comparing objectives

    • Dr. Johannes Siebert, Universität Bayreuth

    Veröffentlichung

    Siebert, Johannes; von Winterfeldt, Detlof; John, Richard. “Identifying and Structuring the Objectives of the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL) and its Followers.” Decision Analysis (INFORMS), 2016, 13(1), 26-50

    Siebert, Johannes U.; von Winterfeldt, Detlof. „Comparative Analysis of Terrorists’ Objectives Hierarchies“, Decision Analysis (INFORMS) June 2020, 17(2), 97-114, https://doi.org/10.1287/deca.2019.0400

    Identifying the objectives of a hostile organization whose decision-makers are not interested in cooperation or even contact with them might be dangerous. In such a case, the methods to identify objectives in a cooperative organizations cannot be applied. We developed a method to identify the objectives of a hostile organization using expert interviews and published speeches of their leaders. The method can also be applied in more moderate cases and could find widespread application, for example, to identify a competitor’s objectives. Furthermore, we developed a method to compare the objectives hierarchies of two or more organizations of one organization over time. The identification of such differences is crucial if they have a substantial impact. For example, to ensure the protection of the civilian population in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States concerning attacks by the terrorist group Islamic State it is necessary to identify similarities and differences of the objectives of Al Qaeda and Islamic State. The results can be used to analyze which measures that had been successful and effective against Al Qaeda could be transferred against Islamic State which not.

    Die Ziele des Islamischen Staats: Neue Studie zu den Führungspersonen des IS und seinen Anhängern
  • Comparative Analysis of Terrorists’ Objectives Hierarchies

    Comparative Analysis of Terrorists’ Objectives Hierarchies

    To develop effective counterterrorism strategies, it is important to understand the capabilities and objectives of terrorist groups. Much of the understanding of these groups comes from intelligence collection and analysis of their capabilities. In contrast, the objectives of terrorists are less well understood. In this article, we describe a decision analysis methodology to identify and structure the objectives of terrorists based on the statements and writings of their leaders. This methodology was applied in three case studies, resulting in the three objectives hierarchies of al-Qaeda, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and Hezbollah. In this article, we propose a method to compare the three objectives hierarchies, highlight their key differences, and draw conclusions about effective counterterrorism strategies. We find that all three terrorist groups have a wide range of objectives going far beyond the objective of killing and terrorizing people in the non-Muslim world. Among the shared objectives are destroying Israel and expelling Western powers from the Middle East. All three groups share the ambition to become a leader in the Islamic world. Key distinctions are the territorial ambitions of ISIL and Hezbollah versus the large-scale attack objectives of al-Qaeda. Objectives specific to ISIL are the establishment of a caliphate in Iraq and Syria and the re-creation of the power of Sunni Islam. Hezbollah has unique objectives related to the establishment of a Palestine State and to maintain the relationship with and support of Iran and Syria. Al-Qaeda’s objectives remain focused on large-scale attacks in the West. We also note a recent shift to provide support for small-scale attacks in the West by both al-Qaeda and ISIL. Our method can be used for comparing objectives hierarchies of different organizations as well as for comparing objectives hierarchies over time of one organization.

    Veröffentlichung

    Siebert, Johannes U.; von Winterfeldt, Detlof. „Comparative Analysis of Terrorists’ Objectives Hierarchies“, Decision Analysis (INFORMS) June 2020, 17(2), 97-114, https://doi.org/10.1287/deca.2019.0400

  • Effects of Proactive Decision Making On Life Satisfaction

    Effects of Proactive Decision Making On Life Satisfaction

    Dr. Johannes Siebert, Universität Bayreuth

    Veröffentlichung

    Siebert, Johannes U.; Kunz, Reinhard, Rolf, Philipp. “Effects of Proactive Decision Making on Life Satisfaction”, European Journal of Operational Research, 280(1) 2020, 1171-1187,  doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2019.08.0111)

    Proactive decision making, a concept recently introduced to behavioural operational research and decision analysis, addresses effective decision making during its phase of generating alternatives. It is measured on a scale comprising six dimensions grouped into two categories: proactive personality traits and proactive cognitive skills. Personality traits are grounded on such theoretical constructs as a proactive attitude and proactive behaviour; cognitive skills reflect value-focused thinking and decision quality. These traits and skills have been used to explain decision satisfaction, although their antecedents and other consequences have not yet been the subject of rigorous hypotheses and testing.

    This paper embeds proactive decision making within a model of three possible consequences. We consider—and empirically test—decision satisfaction, general self-efficacy, and life satisfaction by conducting three studies with 1,300 participants. We then apply structural equation modelling to show that proactive decision making helps account for life satisfaction, an explanation mediated by general self-efficacy and decision satisfaction. Thus proactive decision making fosters greater belief in one’s abilities and increases satisfaction with one’s decisions and with life more generally. These results imply that it is worthwhile to help individuals enhance their decision-making proactivity.

    Demonstrating the positive effects of proactive decision making at the individual level underscores how important is the phase of generating alternatives, and it also highlights the merit of employing “decision quality” principles and being proactive during that phase. Hence the findings presented here confirm the relevance of OR, and of decision-analytic principles, to the lives of ordinary people.

  • Developing the decision support system “Entscheidungsnavi”

    Developing the decision support system “Entscheidungsnavi”

    • Dr. Johannes Siebert, Universität Bayreuth

    Veröffentlichung

    von Nitzsch Rüdiger, Tönsfeuerborn Mendy., Siebert Johannes U. (2020) Decision Skill Training with the Entscheidungsnavi. In: de Almeida A.T., Morais D.C. (eds) Innovation for Systems Information and Decision. INSID 2020. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 405. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64399-7_2

    Siebert, Johannes; Rüdiger von Nitzsch. “Das Jobauswahlproblem für Berufseinsteiger: Eine entscheidungstheoretische Anwendung – Teil 1: Problemstrukturierung in Ziele, Alternativen und Unsicherheiten“, Wissenschaftliche Beiträge, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Studium, October 2018

    Rüdiger von Nitzsch; Siebert, Johannes. „Das Jobauswahlproblem für Berufseinsteiger: Eine entscheidungstheoretische Anwendung – Teil 2: Ermittlung der besten Alternative mit dem ENTSCHEIDUNGSNAVI“, Wissenschaftliche Beiträge, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Studium, November 2018

    Rüdiger von Nitzsch; Siebert, Johannes. „Systematische Entscheidungshilfe durch das ENTSCHEIDUNGSNAVI: Hintergründe und Erläuterungen“

    My objective improving individual and organizational decision-making. Therefore, my colleague von Nitzsch (RWTH Aachen) and I develop a web-based decision support system for decisions with multiple objectives (www.entscheidungsnavi.de, more information the project: www.proaktiv-entscheiden.de). The special about the entscheidungsnavi is sophisticated support which allows decision-makers to structure their decision problem appropriately. Furthermore, the latest research results on decision-making biases and behavior, in general, are considered to ensure high-quality results