The Decision Simulation study exposes you you to a collection of business situations. After each one you will be presented with a document for you to approve or reject. Each simulation begins with the description of your role in the situation. For example you might be a product manager at a company or perhaps an account supervisor. You will then see a set of short business documents relevant to the decision to be made for example:

Short emails
Sales orders
Prices lists

The last thing you will see is the final document for your decision. This study includes a few demograpahic questions and several other brief sets of questions, two before you begin the simulations and three at the end. On average the questions will take about 15 minutes and the entire study will likely take about an hour.

You will earn at least $3.25 + up to an additonal $1.75 depending on your answers in the simulations. You may exit the experiment at any time by pressing the button labled "Exit Decision Simulation" but you will only be paid if you complete all the elements of the study.

Thank you for filling out the surveys.You will now participate in six business situations. Each simulation will consist of a collection of documents to review followed by a document to either approve or reject.

After the six six simulations you will be presented with one more short simulation. Please play close attention to the instructions for the final simulation as they may differ.

You work as the controller in a regional sales office at the Rock Climb Chemical corporation. You are responsible for approving sales reports for consolidation into the quarterly finanical reports for your division. You will be presented with emails relevant to determining what revenue should be counted within this quarter, a sales order from a customer who made a very recent purchase, and an invoice corresponding to the sales order. Following these docouments will be a sales report for a group in the division for which you are responsible. It is important to you to maintain a good relationship with your boss, the sales vice president for your division, so you are hoping that you can approve this sales report without any changes. Though you work for the sales group, you also work closely with the corporate controllers office as these reports will ultimately feed into the company's overall financial reports. Their opinion is also very important to you.

Please Please press the 'Continue to Materials" button to look over the documents and when finished proceed to the sales report. If everything looks acceptable, approve the sales report by clicking the approve button at the bottom of the invoice page. If you believe you have found a significant problem, you may reject the invoice by pressing the reject button.

*This scenario and the associated materials were adapted from case OVA-OB-1104 “Be Careful What You Wish For: From the Middled” of the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) curriculum. The original case was developed by Mary Gentile Now at the University of Virginia. It was based on actual field experience but the names and other situational details were changed. To learn more about GVV and obtain the original source materials go to http://www.darden.virginia.edu/ibis/initiatives/giving-voice-to-values/. No part of these materials may be altered or reproduced without permission.

You are a product manager working for a manufacturer of baby food, baby formula and nutritional supplements for children of all ages. You are responsible for infant formula and supplements. Each year you are required to produce a sales forecast. You will be presented with a collection of emails relevant to determining the sales outlook in the coming year. Following these emails will be a forecast prepared by your assistant for you to approve or reject. Your product is in a mature market and seldom experiences much growth, however there is a new trend where adults are using your supplements as part of a detoxification/cleanse program designed to help foster a healthy lifestyle. This is very exciting news as it would grow the supplement business by more than 50% and the overall sales of your products by more than 10%. Because of this trend the product can be sold in health, nutrition and exercise supply stores where profit margins are higher then in the stores you typically sell in. Your boss is the vice president of product management and he is eager for you to submit an optimistic forecast as quickly as possible as it will increase his promotion budget for the coming year.

Please Please press the "Continue to Materials" button to look over the documents and when finished proceed to the sales forecast. If everything looks acceptable, approve the sales forecast by clicking the approve button at the bottom of the invoice page. If you believe you have found a significant problem, you may reject the forecast by pressing the reject button.

This scenario and the associated materials were adapted with permission from case OVA-OB-1166 “Product Safety and (Preemptive) Recalls” of the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) curriculum. The original case was inspired by the readings: Nash, Laura L (2006). “Decision 1. Marketing Baby Oil at Johnson & Johnson,” in Good Intentions Aside. A Manager’s Guide to Resolving Ethical Problems, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, pp 83-85 and, Vagelos, Roy and Louis Galambos (2006). The Moral Corporation, NY: Cambridge University Press, pp 57-76. The case was prepared by Daniel G. Acred, Ph.D., Dept of Economics, School of Economics, Political and Policy Sciences, the university of Texas at Dallas and Mary Gentile, now at the University of Virginia. It was based on actual field experience but the names and other situational details were changed. To learn more about GVV and obtain the original source materials go to http://www.darden.virginia.edu/ibis/initiatives/giving-voice-to-values/. No part of these materials may be altered or reproduced without permission

You are an accounting supervisor at the TopHome Kitchen Appliance firm. You work in the sales organization for the V,P. Jerry Price and you are responsible for approving or rejecting customer invoices. The materials given to you include a sales order for a retail store called “The Kitchen Store” for products delivered to them and a set of emails related to processing invoices at your company. Lastly, you will be presented with the mathing invoice to deliver to the customer for payment.

Please press the "Continue to Materials" button to look over the documents and when finished proceed to the invoice. If everything looks acceptable, approve the invoice by clicking the approve button at the bottom of the invoice page. If you believe you have found a significant problem, you may reject the invoice by pressing the reject button.

Please review the three documents in the windows below. There are two emails and a customer sales order. When finished, scroll to the bottom of the page and press the button to view the final invoice for approval/rejection or return to the description of the scenario.

Your name is Chris Brown and you work as an assistant controller in the sales office at the AllGlobe Telecommunications company, one of the largest providers of phone services in the world. You and one of the sales managers, Bill Jones, both report to the same vice president. The V.P. likes Bill very much. You are responsible for approving sales data for inclusion in the quarterly financial reports. Last quarter, the company offered a special promotion. Any customer who signed up for their new web interface for voice mail service would get their first three months for free. With this service phone users can go to a company specific website, see a list of recorded messages, and play them on their computer from anywhere they can get an internet connection. If the customer is unhappy with the new service they can cancel it at any time during the first three months without being charged. Afterwards the service will cost $25 per month per line. Any sales group that sold these services to 10 or more customers in the quarter will receive a special bonus.
The materials given to you include a report for a group in one of the divisions you are responsible for as well as some emails relevant to determining how the sales group performed their activity in the last three months.

Please press the "Continue to Materials" button to look over the documents and when finished proceed to the sales report. If everything looks acceptable, approve the sales report by clicking the approve button at the bottom of the invoice page. If you believe you have found a significant problem, you may reject the invoice by pressing the reject button.

Your name is Jamie Height and you are a product manager working for Soft-facto Inc., a large software company that sells “middleware” primarily to large businesses. You are specifically responsible for software that assists in the manufacturing process by tracking parts, partially finished products, and inventory across multiple suppliers and vendors. You are also responsible for a new product. It is a “cloud” service. Normally companies buy your software and run it on their computers. With this new service, you would run your software for them on computers owned by Soft-facto. Customers would connect to your computers, store their data on them and do their processing on your computers for an annual fee. Your boss is the vice president of product management and he is eager for you to submit an optimistic forecast as quickly as possible as it will justify his hiring plan for the next year. Without this increase he will not be able to hire the people he feels are needed in your group and your workload will be higher.

The materials given to you include a forecast prepare by your assistant as well as some emails relevant to the preparation of the forecast.

Please press the "Continue to Materials" button to look over the documents and when finished proceed to the sales forecast. If everything looks acceptable, approve the sales forecast by clicking the approve button at the bottom of the invoice page. If you believe you have found a significant problem, you may reject the forecast by pressing the reject button.

You are an accounts payable supervisor at the Acme accounting firm. You are responsible for approving or rejecting invoices to be sent to customers. You will be presented with several emails on which you were copied and the standard services price list for the firm. The emails document the various services performed by employees of Acme on behalf of the ABC company and should be reflected in an invoice. Following these documents will be the invoice to the ABC company for services rendered. To see the invoice you will need to push the button at the bottom of the page that says 'Continue to Invoice.'

Please press the "Continue to Materials" button to look over the documents and when finished proceed to the invoice. If everything looks acceptable, approve the invoice by clicking the approve button at the bottom of the invoice page. If you believe you have found a signfiant problem, you may reject the invoice by pressing the reject button .

*This scenario and the associated materials were adapted from case OVA-OB-1140 “A Billing Bind” of the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) curriculum. The original case was developed by Ellen Mrowka and Jessica McManus Warnell, University of Notre Dame and Karen Whelan-Berry, Providence College. It was based on an actual internship experience but the names and other situational details were changed. Also, interview sources were left uncredited, with permission, to preserve confidentiality. To learn more about GVV and obtain the original source materials go to http://www.darden.virginia.edu/ibis/initiatives/giving-voice-to-values/. No part of these materials may be altered or reproduced without permission.

Please review the five documents in the windows below. There are four emails and a price list. When finished scroll to the bottom of the page and press the button to view the final invoice for approval/rejection or return to the description of the scenario.

Thank you for participating in the prior six simulations. We have just one more simulation for you followed by the remaining three sets of questions. The final situation is shorter involving just a description followed by the document to approve or reject.

Please memorize the following number and keep it in your head. You will be asked to report on it at the end of the experiment

37264350

When you have memorized the number press "Continue" to view the scenario

You are a product manager working for UltraServer Inc., a large technology company. You are specifically responsible for a line of high end computer systems and among your duties is the developing the annual sales forecast. There are two types of sales people in your unit, general sellers who sell all of the company's products, and dedicated sellers who sell only your products. Dedicated sellers are much more effective. They sell more units and sell at a higher profit. Due to some strategic changes, the general manager of your group has reallocated the dedicated sales staff. He has cut the number of sellers who sell your product in half and he has also altered the compensation model for the general sellers. The commission on other products made by your unit will go up while the commission on your products will go down. This may make sense for the company but it will definitely lower the revenue and the net profit for your products. The general sellers will sell fewer of your products because of the compensation change and there will be fewer dedicated sellers as well. Though the CFO has warned product managers against making optimistic forecasts, you are being pressured by your boss - the VP of product management - to deliver a sales forecast that shows an increase in units and profit. The CEO expects this and he is unaware of the changes made by the general manager of your group. He is also known to make life very difficult for any VP who delivers a sales forecast with any reductions in units or revenue for any product. Your boss says that you should submit a high forecast and see how it goes. If the sales come in below forecast you can deal with it then. He makes it clear that doing this will result in a better performance appraisal for you and a higher raise, all of which will occur before anyone knows the sales results. When youu have finished reading the scenario scroll to the bottom of the page and press the button to view the sales forecast for approval or rejection.