Alberto Franco
- Associate Professor of Operational Research & Systems
BSc (Catolica), MBA (Pacifico), MSc (Lancaster), PhD (London School of Economics)
Biography
Worked as a civil engineer before moving to academia. Held research positions at LSE and Strathclyde prior to joining Warwick. Holds visiting positions at IE Business School (Spain) and Universidad del Pacifico (Peru). Teaches at masters level in areas of managing complexity and uncertainty, planning under pressure and decision analysis. Has been awarded the WBS MBA Best Teaching Award for the past six years. Expertise in strategic issue management; value-focused thinking; resource allocation, budget prioritisation; and value-for-money assessments. Consultancy experience in the construction, transport, hospitality, health, legal services, higher education, and government sectors.
Research interests
The effectiveness of facilitated modelling approaches to support managers' strategy practices; decision making in multi-organisational settings; the mediating role of cognitive style in individual and group decision making processes; the development of interface protocols between problem structuring and multi-criteria decision analysis approaches; Micro-level analyses of group decision making.
Selected research projects
- ESRC Case Studentship: Exploring the impact of problem structuring methods on the Quality of Group Dialogue during strategic development: ESRC & KOIOS Group Ltd, January 2005 - September 2008.
Only selected externally-funded projects are listed here.
Teaching activity this year
Masters Portfolio
- IB93Y0 Dissertation
- IB94S0 Decision Analysis Consulting module leader
- IB94T0 Soft Systems Analysis Consulting
Warwick MBA
- IB9090 Business Decision and Efficiency Analysis module leader
- IB9C10 Managing Complexity module leader
Publications
Journal articles
- Facilitated Modelling in Operational Research (Invited Review) European Journal Of Operational Research 205 (2010): 489-500.
- Understanding Multi-Methodology: evaluating the perceived impact of mixing methods for group budgetary decisions. Omega (2010) (Forthcoming).
- Problem Structuring Methods as Intervention Tools: reflections from their use with multi-organizational teams. Omega 37 (2009): 193-203.
- Facilitating Collaboration with Problem Structuring Methods: a case study of an inter-organisational construction partnership. Group Decision and Negotiation 17 (2008): 267-286.
- Exploring New Directions for Research in Problem Structuring Methods: on the role of cognitive style. Journal Of The Operational Research Society 58 (2007): 1621-1629.
- Assessing the Impact of Problem Structuring Methods in Muti-organisational Settings: an empirical investigation. Journal Of The Operational Research Society 58 (2007): 760-768.
- Project Review and Learning in the Construction Industry: embedding a problem structuring method within a partnership context. European Journal Of Operational Research 153 (2004): 586-601.
