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Darden University of Virginia (USA)
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The Elevator Saga
Baucells, Manel; Yemen, GerryCase DARDEN-QA-0866-EDecision AnalysisThis case describes a common situation in old buildings, namely the decision as to whether intall an elevator. In this armchair case, we have an apartment building in Budapest with 3 towers, each containing 24 homeowners, with a possible interest in adding an elevator to each tower of the walk-up building. The case begins by discussing serveral ways to fairly distribute the cost if the elevators are approved. One way is an equal split. The second...Starting at €8.20
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To LED or Not to LED?
Baucells, Manel; Yemen, GerryCase DARDEN-QA-0862-EDecision AnalysisA director of marketing at a major big-box retailer in the United States finds herself overhearing a customer and a lighting specialist discuss the replacement of incandescent and halogen lightbulbs with LEDs in his house. The case provides sufficient data to perform the economic analysis of which lightbulb is more cost effective in terms of net present value. The results are at odds with the student’s intuitions. This case uses a durable consume...Starting at €8.20
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Vitaliy’s Purchase Decision
Baucells, Manel; Dydyshka, VitaliyExercise DARDEN-QA-0861-EDecision AnalysisThis short case presents the trade-offs that Vitaliy faces before purchasing a car. The case contains a consequence table showing five different cars and how they fare on six attributes, including price, user ratings, torque, fuel consumption, and engine power. The case is ideal to introduce the multiattribute methodology.Starting at €8.20
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A GLUM Primer: The Risk-Adjusted Expected Value
Pfeifer, Phillip E.; Bodily, Samuel E.; Baucells, ManelTechnical Note DARDEN-QA-0849-EDecision AnalysisThe purpose of this note is to improve on the expected value criterion by incorporating the willingness and capability to take risk of a rational decision maker. First, this note will review the concept of expected net present value (ENPV) and demonstrate its limitations. Next, we introduce the notion of play capital, or the most one is willing to put at risk in view of one’s life circumstances, goals, and resources. Then, we introduce the genera...Starting at €8.20
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The Pelayo Family Plays Roulette: The Prequel
Pfeifer, Phillip E.; Bodily, Samuel E.; Baucells, ManelCase DARDEN-QA-0847-EDecision AnalysisThe case presents data from 70,340 spins of four roulette wheels: three of which are real ("imperfect") and one of which is simulated ("perfect"). The challenge posed is to identify which of the four is the simulated wheel. After weeks spent recording spin results at their local casino, the members of the Pelayo family think they have identified three imperfect wheels. Before they start betting, they want to be certain that the three wheels they ...Starting at €8.20
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The Pelayo Family Plays Roulette - Teaching note
Bodily, Samuel E.; Pfeifer, Phillip E.; Baucells, ManelTeaching Note DARDEN-QA-0850TN-EDecision AnalysisTeaching note for product QA-0850Starting at €0.00
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CSR Bonus at CapTech
Baucells, Manel; Ellis, ShawnCase DARDEN-QA-0918-EDecision AnalysisThis case follows Anisha Anderson, who has had three of her customer service representatives (CSRs) quit. Her job is to think about how she can adjust the CSR training and bonus program to promote retention in the department, which has been a cause of concern for a while.Starting at €8.20
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Resolving Trade-Offs: From Simple Heuristics to Multicriteria Analysis
Baucells, ManelTechnical Note DARDEN-QA-0914-EDecision AnalysisThis note discusses a variety of methods to assist intuition in complex situations with multiple objectives and a potentially large set of alternatives. It begins with heuristic rules, which are relatively simple ways to sort out alternatives without thinking too much about trade-offs. After discussing the reliability of such rules, it moves to multicriteria analysis, which is a more rational method of balancing conflicting objectives.Starting at €8.20
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The 10th at Riviera
Baucells, ManelCase DARDEN-QA-0953-EDecision AnalysisThis case presents a dilemma that professional golfers face when having to choose a target point for landing the ball. Key to this case is to acknowledge uncertainty as reflected in less-than-perfect accuracy. Thus the ball will land in a "cloud" around the intended target. On such a cloud, some spots (e.g., the fairway) are better than others (e.g., sand bunkers or rough). There is therefore a conflict between advancing the ball as close to the ...Starting at €8.20
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Introduction to Dynamic Programming
Baucells, Manel; Zorc, SasaTechnical Note DARDEN-QA-0955Decision AnalysisThis technical note introduces dynamic programming (DP), a powerful tool for finding optimal solutions to complex problems that involve a concatenation of multiple decisions. This note assumes some familiarity with decision trees. Compared to decision trees, DP simplifies the problem representation by pooling together similar decision situations, allowing us to apply backward induction in batches by means of the Bellman equation. The note stresse...Starting at €8.20