Faculty & Curriculum : Faculty Profile

Research Interests Judgment and decision making with applications to management and consumer behavior Judgments of fairness

Dr. Lisa Ordóñez

Lisa Ordóñez is an associate professor in the Department of Management and Organizations at the Eller College of Management.

She received all of her degrees at the University of California at Berkeley: bachelors (1988) and Ph.D. (1994) in quantitative psychology and a masters in marketing (1992). She joined The University of Arizona in 1994 and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2000. Her research interests in human decision making combine the quantitative training in psychology with applications in business. She has published 13 scholarly articles and three chapters in this field. She recently received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to support her work on emotions and decision making.

Lisa Ordóñez on her business statistics course:

Most MBA students dread taking business statistics — and for good reason. Their previous experience with similar courses has been a dry presentation taught via mathematical derivations followed by homework assignments and exams that involve a heavy amount of hand calculations.

Well, this isn’t your ordinary business statistics course! I focus on understanding how and when to use the analyses with statistical software programs instead of dwelling on technical details. The goal is to learn how statistics can be used as a managerial decision making tool. Whenever possible, computer output will demonstrate a statistical technique. The statistical menus/functions in Excel will enhance your understanding of computers and how to read and interpret statistical output. Theoretical concepts will be taught so that you will know when (and when not to) use statistical tests and how to interpret the results.

Course meetings combine lectures, case studies, interpretation of computer statistical output, and problem solving. You will leave with a tool kit of statistics to solve business problems rather than a head full of statistics that are quickly forgotten.
 

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