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Behavioural Insights for Business and Management

Module description

This module will provide an overview of the important insights from behavioural economics and apply to business, economics and management decision making context. It will teach students the core theory of behavioural economics, demonstrate how these can be applied to explain and inform the decisions made by stakeholders, workers, and consumers, and ultimately apply to business and policy-relevant issues. The module will focus on conceptual foundations (core assumptions and models), problem solving and applications.

It is recommended that you study and pass module BEE1039 before joining BEE2042 (although this is not essential).

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module aims to develop understanding of behavioural models and the ability to apply those theories to real decision making scenarios. The aim of this module is to enable the students to examine economic theory from a behavioural perspective, gain insights and hopefully apply to various decision making contexts. Quantitative skills will be developed through a series of problem sets.  Critical thinking and communication skills will be developed in tutorials through group work and student presentations.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. explain and analyse the most important contributions of behavioural economics;
• 2. apply the insights from the behavioural economics to critically analysing and understanding many economic behaviours in firms, organizations, and markets;
• 3. understand project reports and journal articles that use the concepts and methods introduced in the module.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. apply economic theory in case studies;
• 5. evaluate the insights alternative theoretical models offer in case studies.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. demonstrate problem solving skills;
• 7. demonstrate critical thinking and communication skills.

Syllabus plan

Selected topics in behavioural economics will be covered. For each topic, we begin with the standard model of rational decision making, and discuss what types of behaviours this model can explain. We then move on to examine evidence from experiments and conclude with alternatives models that are proposed to account for the behavioural “anomalies”.  The topics that we may cover (but not limited to) are as follows:

• Decisions under risk and uncertainty
• Temptation and self-control
• Social preferences: fairness and reciprocity
• Social norms and social approval
• Introduction to game theory

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Angner, Eric. (2020). A Course in Behavioral Economics (3rd edition). Macmillan International Higher Education.

Thaler, Richard and Sunstein, Cass R.. (2009). Nudge. Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness, Penguin Books

Thaler, Richard. 1992. The Winner’s Curse. Paradoxes and Anomalies of Everyday Life. A Russell Sage Foundation Book. The Free Press, NY.

Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Key words search

Behavioural Economics