I am conducting research in decision sciences and behavioral economics. My objective is to contribute to improving individual and organizational decision-making. I pursue this objective in four areas: Research, Education / Training, Consulting, and Dissemination of research results.

Research provides the basis for my activities. With colleagues, I am

  • Developing and empirically testing decision-theoretic sound methods and behavioral economic interventions
    • to “give yourself a nudge”.
    • to structure decision situations appropriately.
    • to identify and organize objectives.
    • to create more and better alternatives.
  • Analyzing the antecedents and consequences of proactive, good decision making .
    • to what extent proactive decision making can be measured.
    • to what extent proactive decision-making can be learned in courses.
    • to what extent does Proactive Decision-making lead to higher life satisfaction, career satisfaction, entrepreneurial intent, factual action, etc?

In education and training, I help individuals improve their personal and professional decision-making. My audience includes high school and university students, (political) key decision makers, and consultants. My MOOC “Proaktiv smarte Entscheidungen treffen“, in collaboration with Ralph Keeney, is one of the top-rated on the MOOC platform Imoox.

In consulting, I am interested in helping companies and organizations identify, clarify, and organize the conflicting objectives relevant to their complex decisions. This allows them to avoid decision-making traps, make better decisions, and act in accordance with their values. In addition, I introduce behavioral economics-based interventions in organizations.

  • Developing and empirically testing decision-theoretic sound methods and behavioral economic interventions
    • to “give yourself a nudge.”
    • to structure decision situations appropriately.
    • to identify and organize objectives.
    • to create more and better alternatives.
  • Analyzing the antecedents and consequences of proactive, good decision making .
    • to what extent can proactive decision-making be measured?
    • to what extent can proactive decision-making be learned in courses?
    • to what extent does Proactive Decision-making lead to higher life satisfaction, career satisfaction, entrepreneurial intent, factual action, etc.?

For the research results to have their full iFmpact, I disseminate them to society through interviews and contributions to the media (e.g., Focus Online, Der Standard), guest lectures (e.g., TEDxInnsbruck), and much more.

Academic short bio

Johannes Siebert habilitated in Business Administration and Economics with a particular focus on Behavioral Operations Research and Decision Making at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and teaches Decision Sciences and Behavioral Economics at MCI | THE ENTREPREUNRIAL SCHOOL®, Innsbruck, Austria. He has published papers in leading international journals such as Operations Research (A+) and the European Journal of Operational Research (A).

He is a Member of the Executive Committee of the International Society on MCDM, a Member of the Coordinating Board of the European Working Group of Behavioral Operations Research, and a Member of the Editorial Board of the INFORMS journal Decision Analysis. In addition, he serves in the Advisory Council of the Alliance for Decision Education with leading researchers such as Daniel Kahneman or Richard Thaler to promote decision education for adolescents worldwide.

Johannes’s research objective is to contribute to better-informed decision making and thereby make better decisions for individuals and organizations. He conceptualized and validated a six-dimensional scale for measuring good, proactive decision-making (PDM). He showed that PDM explains a substantial share of life satisfaction, i.e., those who are more proactive in their decision making are more satisfied with their life, and that PDM can be trained in decision-making courses. These empirical findings suggest that decision-making courses positively affect participants’ lives. He extends the concept of classical nudging with Ralph Keeney by empowering individuals to become their own decision architects. In a well-received TEDxTalk, he summarized the core ideas.

Overall, he raised more than 700.000 Euro third-party funding. Recently, he received a significant grant to develop and measure the impact of decision-making courses for high school students in Upper Franconia, Germany, who have to decide what to do after school. The first results in the project KLUGentscheiden (smart deciding) indicate that decision-making workshops enhance the proactive decision-making skills of high school students and empower them for their future decisions.

He also consulted for both public and private organizations in the US and Europe in research-oriented projects. For example, he identified and structured the strategic objectives for a huge European energy provider after Germany decided to fade out nuclear energy, he identified and structured the objectives for the California Ministry of Transportation when allocating a 12 billion budget for the maintenance of highways and bridges in California, he developed a method for a leading pharmaceutical company to prioritize and monitor compounds in multi-criteria portfolio design in the early stage of the development pipeline, which is characterized by high uncertainty, or he identified and structured the objectives of the terrorist group Islamic State to provide a basis to create effective procedures to protect civilians in the Middle East, the United States, and Europe. He was acknowledged as a finalist in the practice award of the Decision Analysis Society (INFORMS) three times.