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M4 Case Study: Faulty Decision Making Is a Cause of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster

Heavy smoke and fire on water
Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Dark clouds of smoke and fire emerge as oil burns during a controlled fire in the Gulf of Mexico, May 6, 2010. Image by Justin Stumberg, via Wikimedia Commons, [Public domain]

After you have read pages 361 and 362, please answer the following questions:

    1. What model of decision making is represented in this case?
    2. To what extent did decision-making biases impact the decisions made in this case? Identify the specific biases that were present.
    3. How could evidence-based decision making been used to help avoid this disaster? Please explain.
    4. What do you think are they key causes of this disaster?

Please be sure to cite OB concepts and theories from the reading to support your answers.