Managing beyond homo economicus
Good managers are often expected to have a solid grounding in economics. This is a sound practice as economics concerns itself with optimum solutions to day-to-day problems and situations. However, classical economics assumes that the humans, including the decision-makers, involved in thesesituationsare consistently rational and narrowly self-interested, who pursue their subjectively defined ends optimally.Thisunrealistically rational, implausibly self-interested, unbelievable optimizermodel of people is calledHomo Economicus, or the Economic Man.Managing in the real world requires dealing with the choices and actions of human beings, not an army of homo economicuses. Human beings, who are more likely tobelieve something printedin a bold type face!Human beings, whoassume a good-looking person will be more competent!Human beings, who buy much more if they go grocery shopping while hungry!Humans, who overwhelmingly opt in to organ donation when the default option is opt in, and overwhelmingly opt out of organ donation when the default option is opt out!This seminar looks at how to manage in a world of humans.