FLINS 2012

-One-Shot Decision Theory-A Fundamental Alternative for Decision under Uncertainty

Peijun Guo
Professor of Decision Sciences, Faculty of Business Administration,
Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Japan

One-shot (one-time) decision problems are typical for the situations where a decision maker has one and only one chance to make a decision under uncertainty. Such one-shot decision problems are commonly encountered in business, economics and social systems. Decision theories involving uncertainty are theories of choice of lotteries. The existing decision theories follow the same framework of weighting average of all outcomes no matter how they revise their models. One-shot decision theory is the scenario-based choice but not the lottery-based one. One-shot decision theory provides a fundamental alternative and an innovative scheme for decision making under uncertainty. This presentation aims to clarify why new theories for one-shot decisions are needed and show how the one-shot decision theory provides useful insights in understanding different behaviors of decision makers and help the decision maker in finding out the best solution in one-shot decision problems. Some applications and the future research directions will be pointed out.