Helga Drummond – författare

Getting organizations going is one thing. Stopping them is another. This book examines how and why organizations become trapped in disastrous decisions. The focal point is Project Taurus, an IT venture commissioned by the London Stock Exchange and supported by numerous City Institutions. Taurus was intended to transform London's antiquated manual share settlement procedures into a state of the art electronic system that would be the envy of the world. The project collapsed after three year's intensive work and investments totalling almost £500 million.This book is an in depth study of escalation in decision making. The author has interviewed a number of people who played a key role and presents a most readable account of what actually happened. At the same time she sets the case in the broader literature of decision making.

Helga Drummond's concise introduction to Organizational Behaviour combines managerialist, interpretative and critical perspectives to provide a lucid guide for students new to the subject. Her text is packed with case material and she uses learning aids such as discussion questions, chapter summaries, reflection points, and further reading suggestions which give students practical ways to assimilate the material and take their analysis further, whilst two whole chapters are devoted to learning techniques and dissertation writing.

The collapse of Barings’ Bank was a commercial catastrophe that resonated worldwide, showing what kind of secrets can lie behind an apparently successful organization. Following Nick Leeson’s arrest and subsequent conviction for fraud, investment banks anxiously reviewed their risk management controls to make sure that it could never happen again. Helga Drummond’s exploration is conducted against a backdrop of social and psychological theories of decision error that seeks to go beyond media style accusations of greed and incompetence. She challenges the myth that Barings ‘must have known’ that mischief was afoot. The book offers lessons for all organizations as it shows how easily managers can end up living in a world of fantasy believing that everything is under control when the precise opposite may be true. It is not risk and uncertainty that should worry organizations, concludes Drummond, but what they are most sure of. The collapse of Barings Bank had international ramifications, and this scholarly analysis will have an international audience as a result. The book will be of great interest to all those interested in social psychology, the application of psychology in management theory, sociology, and organizational behaviour. It is also suitable as recommended reading for a management or organization behaviour course.

The collapse of Barings’ Bank was a commercial catastrophe that resonated worldwide, showing what kind of secrets can lie behind an apparently successful organization. Following Nick Leeson’s arrest and subsequent conviction for fraud, investment banks anxiously reviewed their risk management controls to make sure that it could never happen again. Helga Drummond’s exploration is conducted against a backdrop of social and psychological theories of decision error that seeks to go beyond media style accusations of greed and incompetence. She challenges the myth that Barings ‘must have known’ that mischief was afoot. The book offers lessons for all organizations as it shows how easily managers can end up living in a world of fantasy believing that everything is under control when the precise opposite may be true. It is not risk and uncertainty that should worry organizations, concludes Drummond, but what they are most sure of. The collapse of Barings Bank had international ramifications, and this scholarly analysis will have an international audience as a result. The book will be of great interest to all those interested in social psychology, the application of psychology in management theory, sociology, and organizational behaviour. It is also suitable as recommended reading for a management or organization behaviour course.

Science reassures, art disturbs (Proverb) This intriguing exploration of underlying forces in decision making takes as its starting point a wealth of high profile decision disasters. In brilliantly readable analyses, Helga Drummond shows how better awareness of the inherent uncertainties of the decision making process could have made the outcomes very different. Examples showcased include: The Hatfield rail crash The Kursk submarine disaster The Challenger disaster The year 2000 fuel crisis The WWII Dardanelles expedition The Barings Bank collapse The Taurus Stock Exchange Project The Hillsborough tragedy The King''s Cross underground fire The Millennium Dome This entertaining yet instructive book offers new insight into the realities of decision making, and shows how you can confront them to improve your prospects of success.

Science reassures, art disturbs (Proverb)This intriguing exploration of underlying forces in decision making takes as its starting point a wealth of high profile decision disasters. In brilliantly readable analyses, Helga Drummond shows how better awareness of the inherent uncertainties of the decision making process could have made the outcomes very different.Examples showcased include:The Hatfield rail crashThe Kursk submarine disasterThe Challenger disasterThe year 2000 fuel crisisThe WWII Dardanelles expeditionThe Barings Bank collapseThe Taurus Stock Exchange Project The Hillsborough tragedyThe King's Cross underground fireThe Millennium DomeThis entertaining yet instructive book offers new insight into the realities of decision making, and shows how you can confront them to improve your prospects of success.

When a venture seems to be faltering, do you persist and hope that things will get better or do you cut your losses? This may be one of the most important decisions business or project owners may ever have to make. Persistence involves the risk of throwing good money (or resources) after bad, but owners may feel they have too much invested to quit now. Escalation in Decision-Making reveals why social scientists believe that owners may not respond rationally to such predicaments. Instead of exiting when the odds are clearly stacked against them, they re-invest and end up compounding their losses - a phenomenon known as escalation of commitment. The authors, Helga Drummond and Julia Hodgson, also introduce the concept of entrapment, a variation whereby decision-makers passively drift towards insolvency as the cost of changing direction becomes too high. So: · what drives escalation? · why do some owners quit whilst others persist until the bailiffs arrive? · what can we learn from owners' mistakes? · what makes newcomers believe they can succeed where others are conspicuously failing? These questions of behavioural economics are answered using a narrative that analyses decisions made by market traders facing economic extinction. Many highly successful entrepreneurs started their careers in markets - it was once an almost guaranteed route to prosperity - now market traders are struggling to survive. Although the market traders featured are small entrepreneurs, the ubiquitous phenomenon of escalation at the heart of these stories is widely relevant to practitioners such as project managers in large organizations and to those responsible for managing risk in many situations. Rich in case studies involving real business decisions and dilemmas, Escalation in Decision-Making provides an accessible introduction to the application of theory against a background of growing interest in behavioural economics, now being researched and taught in univ

The collapse of Barings Bank was a commercial catastrophe that resonated worldwide, showing what kind of secrets can lie behind an apparently successful organization.  Following Nick Leeson‘s arrest and subsequent conviction for fraud, investment banks anxiously reviewed their risk management controls to make sure that it could never happen a

When a venture seems to be faltering, do you persist and hope that things will get better or do you cut your losses? This may be one of the most important decisions business or project owners may ever have to make. Persistence involves the risk of throwing good money (or resources) after bad, but owners may feel they have too much invested to quit now. Escalation in Decision-Making reveals why social scientists believe that owners may not respond rationally to such predicaments. Instead of exiting when the odds are clearly stacked against them, they re-invest and end up compounding their losses - a phenomenon known as escalation of commitment. The authors, Helga Drummond and Julia Hodgson, also introduce the concept of entrapment, a variation whereby decision-makers passively drift towards insolvency as the cost of changing direction becomes too high. So: · what drives escalation? · why do some owners quit whilst others persist until the bailiffs arrive? · what can we learn from owners'' mistakes? · what makes newcomers believe they can succeed where others are conspicuously failing? These questions of behavioural economics are answered using a narrative that analyses decisions made by market traders facing economic extinction. Many highly successful entrepreneurs started their careers in markets - it was once an almost guaranteed route to prosperity - now market traders are struggling to survive. Although the market traders featured are small entrepreneurs, the ubiquitous phenomenon of escalation at the heart of these stories is widely relevant to practitioners such as project managers in large organizations and to those responsible for managing risk in many situations. Rich in case studies involving real business decisions and dilemmas, Escalation in Decision-Making provides an accessible introduction to the application of theory against a background of growing interest in behavioural economics, now being researched and taught in univ

When a venture seems to be faltering, do you persist and hope that things will get better or do you cut your losses? This may be one of the most important decisions business or project owners may ever have to make. Persistence involves the risk of throwing good money (or resources) after bad, but owners may feel they have too much invested to quit now. Escalation in Decision-Making reveals why social scientists believe that owners may not respond rationally to such predicaments. Instead of exiting when the odds are clearly stacked against them, they re-invest and end up compounding their losses - a phenomenon known as escalation of commitment. The authors, Helga Drummond and Julia Hodgson, also introduce the concept of entrapment, a variation whereby decision-makers passively drift towards insolvency as the cost of changing direction becomes too high. So: · what drives escalation? · why do some owners quit whilst others persist until the bailiffs arrive? · what can we learn from owners'' mistakes? · what makes newcomers believe they can succeed where others are conspicuously failing? These questions of behavioural economics are answered using a narrative that analyses decisions made by market traders facing economic extinction. Many highly successful entrepreneurs started their careers in markets - it was once an almost guaranteed route to prosperity - now market traders are struggling to survive. Although the market traders featured are small entrepreneurs, the ubiquitous phenomenon of escalation at the heart of these stories is widely relevant to practitioners such as project managers in large organizations and to those responsible for managing risk in many situations. Rich in case studies involving real business decisions and dilemmas, Escalation in Decision-Making provides an accessible introduction to the application of theory against a background of growing interest in behavioural economics, now being researched and taught in univ

When a venture seems to be faltering, do you persist and hope that things will get better or do you cut your losses? This may be one of the most important decisions business or project owners may ever have to make. Persistence involves the risk of throwing good money (or resources) after bad, but owners may feel they have too much invested to quit now. Escalation in Decision-Making reveals why social scientists believe that owners may not respond rationally to such predicaments. Instead of exiting when the odds are clearly stacked against them, they re-invest and end up compounding their losses - a phenomenon known as escalation of commitment. The authors, Helga Drummond and Julia Hodgson, also introduce the concept of entrapment, a variation whereby decision-makers passively drift towards insolvency as the cost of changing direction becomes too high. So: · what drives escalation? · why do some owners quit whilst others persist until the bailiffs arrive? · what can we learn from owners' mistakes? · what makes newcomers believe they can succeed where others are conspicuously failing? These questions of behavioural economics are answered using a narrative that analyses decisions made by market traders facing economic extinction. Many highly successful entrepreneurs started their careers in markets - it was once an almost guaranteed route to prosperity - now market traders are struggling to survive. Although the market traders featured are small entrepreneurs, the ubiquitous phenomenon of escalation at the heart of these stories is widely relevant to practitioners such as project managers in large organizations and to those responsible for managing risk in many situations. Rich in case studies involving real business decisions and dilemmas, Escalation in Decision-Making provides an accessible introduction to the application of theory against a background of growing interest in behavioural economics, now being researched and taught in univ