Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Decision Making (decision + making)
Kinds of Decision Making Terms modified by Decision Making Selected AbstractsPOLICE SUSPICION AND DISCRETIONARY DECISION MAKING DURING CITIZEN STOPS,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 2 2005GEOFFREY P. ALPERT This study examines the influence of racial, demographic and situational variables on types of police suspicion and the ancillary decision to stop and question suspects. Data were drawn from an observational study of police decision making in Savannah, Georgia. Based on the literature, we hypothesized that minority suspects will be more likely to be viewed suspiciously by the police for nonbehavioral reasons. We also hypothesize that minority status will play a significant role in the decision to stop and question suspicious persons. The findings from this study provide partial support for these hypotheses. The results indicate that minority status does influence an officer's decision to form nonbehavioral as opposed to behavioral suspicion, but that minority status does not influence the decision to stop and question suspects. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding race and its role in police decision making. [source] DETERRENCE, CONTEXT, AND CRIME DECISION MAKINGCRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2008GREG POGARSKY First page of article [source] REFLECTIONS ON THE STATE OF CONSENSUS-BASED DECISION MAKING IN CHILD WELFAREFAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 1 2009Bernie Mayer Consensus approaches to child protection decision making such as mediation and family group conferencing have become increasingly widespread since first initiated about 25 years ago. They address but are also constrained by paradoxes in the child protection system about commitments to protecting children and to family autonomy. In a series of surveys, interviews, and dialogues, mediation and conferencing researchers and practitioners discussed the key issues that face their work: clarity about purpose, system support, family empowerment, professional qualifications, and coordination among different types of consensus-building efforts. Consensus-based decision making in child protection will continue to expand and grow but will also continue to confront these challenges. [source] CHILDREN'S AND PARENTS' PERCEPTIONS ON CHILDREN'S PARTICIPATION IN DECISION MAKING AFTER PARENTAL SEPARATION AND DIVORCE*FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Issue 1 2008Judy Cashmore This article outlines the views of children and parents involved in family law disputes, about the need for and appropriateness of children's participation in decisions regarding residence and contact arrangements. Ninety parents and 47 children (ranging in age from 6 to 18 years) who had been through parental separation, were interviewed. Both parents and children had a range of views about the general appropriateness and fairness of children being involved, but the great majority, particularly of parents, thought that children should have a say in these matters. Core findings of the study include the considerable influence that older children had over the arrangements either in the aftermath of the separation or in making further changes over time, and the higher stated need of children who had experienced violence, abuse, or high levels of conflict to be heard than those in less problematic and noncontested matters. Parents involved in contested proceedings supported the participation of children at a younger age than those who were not. There was a reasonable degree of agreement between parents and children about the need for children to be acknowledged and the value of their views being heard in the decision-making process. Parents, however, expressed concern about the pressure and manipulation that children can face and exert in this process, whereas children were generally more concerned about the fairness of the outcomes, and maintaining their relationships with their parents and siblings. [source] INTEGRATING HUMANS IN ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT USING MULTI-CRITERIA DECISION MAKING,JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WATER RESOURCES ASSOCIATION, Issue 2 2003Georgios E. Pavlikakis ABSTRACT: The Ecosystem Management (EM) process belongs to the category of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problems. It requires appropriate decision support systems (DSS) where "all interested people" would be involved in the decision making process. Environmental values critical to EM, such as the biological diversity, health, productivity and sustainability, have to be studied, and play an important role in modeling the ecosystem functions; human values and preferences also influence decision making. Public participation in decision and policy making is one of the elements that differentiate EM from the traditional methods of management. Here, a methodology is presented on how to quantify human preferences in EM decision making. The case study of the National Park of River Nestos Delta and Lakes Vistonida and Ismarida in Greece, presented as an application of this methodology, shows that the direct involvement of the public, the quantification of its preferences and the decision maker's attitude provide a strong tool to the EM decision making process. Public preferences have been given certain weights and three MCDM methods, namely, the Expected Utility Method, Compromise Programming and the Analytic Hierarchy Process, have been used to select alternative management solutions that lead to the best configuration of the ecosystem and are also socially acceptable. [source] ASSESSING THE CANDIDATE AS A WHOLE: A HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT FOR PERSONNEL DECISION MAKINGPERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2002SCOTT HIGHHOUSEArticle first published online: 7 DEC 200 Although individual assessment is a thriving area of professional practice in industry, it receives little, if any, attention from textbooks on industrial psychology or personnel management. This article is an attempt to establish individual assessment's place in the history of personnel selection, and to examine why the practice has survived despite receiving little attention in research and graduate training. It is argued that the clinical, holistic approach that has characterized individual-assessment practice has survived primarily because the "elementalistic" testing approach, focusing on traits and abilities, has often been dismissed as inadequate for addressing the complexities of the executive profile. Moreover, public displeasure with standard paper-and-pencil testing in the 1960s and 1970s made the holistic approach to assessment an attractive, alternative. The article contrasts individual assessment practice with the current state of knowledge on psychological assessment and personnel decision making. Like psychotherapy in the 1950s, individual psychological assessment appears to have achieved the status of functional autonomy within psychology. [source] Advanced Heart Failure: Prognosis, Uncertainty, and Decision MakingCONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE, Issue 5 2007Jane G. Zapka ScD Heart failure is a serious clinical management challenge for both patients and primary care physicians. The authors studied the perceptions and practices of internal medicine residents and faculty at an academic medical center in the Southeast to guide design of strategies to improve heart failure care. Data were collected via a self-administered survey. Eighty-nine faculty and resident physicians in general internal medicine and geriatrics participated (74% response rate). Items measured perceived skills and barriers, adherence to guidelines, and physician understanding of patient prognosis. Case studies explored practice approaches. Clinical knowledge and related scales were generally good and comparable between physician groups. Palliative care and prognostic skills were self-rated with wide variance. Physicians rated patient noncompliance and low lifestyle change motivation as major barriers. Given the complexities of caring for elderly persons with heart failure and comorbid conditions, there are significant opportunities for improving physician skills in decision making, patient-centered counseling, and palliative care. [source] Improvement In Blood Pressure Control With Impedance Cardiography-Guided Pharmacologic Decision MakingCONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE, Issue 1 2004Donald L. Sharman MD Previous reports have demonstrated improvement in blood pressure (BP) control utilizing noninvasive hemodynamic measurements with impedance cardiography (ICG). The purpose of this article is to report the effect of utilizing ICG-guided decision making to treat uncontrolled hypertension in a community generalist setting. Patient medical records were retrospectively reviewed for subjects on two antihypertensive agents with systolic blood pressure ,140 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure ,90 mm Hg. All subjects were treated utilizing a previously published ICG-guided treatment algorithm. Twenty-one subjects met the BP and medication criteria. BP at entry was 157.2±13.9/78.7±9.9 mm Hg. Subjects were treated for 215±85 days (5.0±2.0 visits). After ICG-guided treatment, 12/21 (57.1%) achieved sustained BP control (p<0.001). BP was lowered to 141.6±22.0 (p<0.001)/77.1±10.7 (p>0.05) mm Hg. Antihypertensive agents increased from 2.0±0.0 to 2.5±0.7 (p<0.05). In this series of subjects with uncontrolled BP taking two antihypertensive agents, ICG-guided pharmacologic decision making resulted in significant reduction in BP and improvement in BP control. [source] An Experimental Investigation of Approaches to Audit Decision Making: An Evaluation Using Systems-Mediated Mental Models,CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 2 2005AMY K. CHOY Abstract The objective of this research is to articulate a decision-making foundation for the systems audit approach. Under this audit approach, the auditor first gains an understanding of the auditee's economic environment, strategy, and business processes and then forms expectations about its performance and financial reporting. Proponents of this audit approach argue that decision making is enhanced because the knowledge of the system allows the auditor to focus on the most important risks. However, there has not been an explicit framework to explain how systems knowledge can enhance decision making. To provide such a framework, we combine mental model theory with general systems theory to produce a hypothesis we refer to as a systems-mediated mental model hypothesis. We test this hypothesis using experimental economics methods. We find that (1) subjects make systematic errors under the setting without an organizing framework provided by the systems information, and (2) the presence of an organizing framework results in lower reporting errors. Importantly, the organizing framework significantly enhances decision making in the settings where the environment changed. Establishing a decision-making foundation for systems audits can provide an important building block that, in part, can contribute to the development of a more effective and efficient audit technology - an important objective now when audits are facing a credibility crisis. [source] Reading the Sermon the Mount: Character Formation and Decision Making in Matthew 5,7CONVERSATIONS IN RELIGION & THEOLOGY, Issue 2 2005Article first published online: 11 OCT 200 Books reviewed: Charles Talbert, Reading the Sermon the Mount: Character Formation and Decision Making in Matthew 5,7 Reviewed by Leslie Houlden [source] Media Reviews Available OnlineACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 12 2006Article first published online: 28 JUN 200 Book reviewed in this article: Pediatric Resuscitation: A Practical Approach. Edited by Mark G. Roback, Stephen J. Teach. Anyone, Anything, Anytime (A History of Emergency Medicine) By Brian J. Zink. Emergency Medicine Decision Making: Critical Choices in Chaotic Environments By Scott Weingart, Peter Wyer. Cardiology Clinics: Chest Pain Units issue Edited by Ezra A. Amsterdam, J. Douglas Kirk MD. Pediatric Emergency Medicine Quick Glance Edited by Ghazala Q. Sharieff, Madeline Matar Joseph, Todd W. Wylie. Emergency Medicine Written Board Review. By Scott H. Plantz, Dwight Collman. Emergency Medicine Oral Board Review. By William Gossman, Scott H. Plantz. Emergency Medicine Q & A. By Joseph Lex, Lance W. Kreplick, Scott H. Plantz, Daniel Girazadas Jr. [source] Sourcing Research as an Intellectual Network of Ideas,DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 3 2008G. Tomas M. Hult ABSTRACT What are the current intellectual clusters in the sourcing literature? How do these clusters relate to each other? How has sourcing-related research changed over the last 10 years? We respond to these questions by examining the intellectual structure of research in the sourcing literature across 21 journals during the last decade (1998,2007). Multidimensional scaling is used to analyze cocitation data involving 72,003 citations from 1,960 sourcing articles. The results indicate that 10 different sourcing clusters emerged in the 1998,2002 period and 6 sourcing clusters surfaced in the 2003,2007 period. Five of the intellectual clusters in 1998,2002 disappeared in 2003,2007, five clusters remained, and one new cluster materialized in 2003,2007 that did not exist in the earlier period (Managerial Behavior and Upstream Decision Making). [source] A Modeling Framework for Supply Chain Simulation: Opportunities for Improved Decision Making,DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 1 2005D. J. Van Der Zee ABSTRACT Owing to its inherent modeling flexibility, simulation is often regarded as the proper means for supporting decision making on supply chain design. The ultimate success of supply chain simulation, however, is determined by a combination of the analyst's skills, the chain members' involvement, and the modeling capabilities of the simulation tool. This combination should provide the basis for a realistic simulation model, which is both transparent and complete. The need for transparency is especially strong for supply chains as they involve (semi)autonomous parties each having their own objectives. Mutual trust and model effectiveness are strongly influenced by the degree of completeness of each party's insight into the key decision variables. Ideally, visual interactive simulation models present an important communicative means for realizing the required overview and insight. Unfortunately, most models strongly focus on physical transactions, leaving key decision variables implicit for some or all of the parties involved. This especially applies to control structures, that is, the managers or systems responsible for control, their activities and their mutual attuning of these activities. Control elements are, for example, dispersed over the model, are not visualized, or form part of the time-indexed scheduling of events. In this article, we propose an alternative approach that explicitly addresses the modeling of control structures. First, we will conduct a literature survey with the aim of listing simulation model qualities essential for supporting successful decision making on supply chain design. Next, we use this insight to define an object-oriented modeling framework that facilitates supply chain simulation in a more realistic manner. This framework is meant to contribute to improved decision making in terms of recognizing and understanding opportunities for improved supply chain design. Finally, the use of the framework is illustrated by a case example concerning a supply chain for chilled salads. [source] Decision Making with Uncertain Judgments: A Stochastic Formulation of the Analytic Hierarchy Process*DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 3 2003Eugene D. Hahn ABSTRACT In the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), priorities are derived via a deterministic method, the eigenvalue decomposition. However, judgments may be subject to error. A stochastic characterization of the pairwise comparison judgment task is provided and statistical models are introduced for deriving the underlying priorities. Specifically, a weighted hierarchical multinomial logit model is used to obtain the priorities. Inference is then conducted from the Bayesian viewpoint using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The stochastic methods are found to give results that are congruent with those of the eigenvector method in matrices of different sizes and different levels of inconsistency. Moreover, inferential statements can be made about the priorities when the stochastic approach is adopted, and these statements may be of considerable value to a decision maker. The methods described are fully compatible with judgments from the standard version of AHP and can be used to construct a stochastic formulation of it. [source] Decision Making in a Standby Service System,DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 3 2000H. V. Ravinder A standby service option allows a firm to lower its risk of not having sufficient capacity to satisfy demand without investing in additional capacity. Standby service options currently exist in the natural gas, electric, and water utility industries. Firms seeking standby service are typically large industrial or institutional organizations that, due to unexpectedly high demand or interruptions in their own supply system, look to a public utility to supplement their requirements. Typically, the firm pays the utility a reservation fee based on a nominated volume and a consumption charge based on the volume actually taken. In this paper, a single-period model is developed and optimized with respect to the amount of standby capacity a firm should reserve. Expressions for the mean and variance of the supplier's aggregate standby demand distribution are developed. A procedure for computing the level of capacity needed to safely meet its standby obligations is presented. Numerical results suggest that the standby supplier can safely meet its standby demand with a capacity that is generally between 20 to 50% of the aggregate nominated volume. [source] Visual Function is Stable in Patients Who Continue Long-Term Vigabatrin Therapy: Implications for Clinical Decision MakingEPILEPSIA, Issue 4 2001Scott R. Paul Summary: ,Purpose: Vigabatrin (VGB) has been shown to cause visual field constriction and other forms of mild visual dysfunction. We determined the safety of continuing VGB therapy in patients who had received prolonged treatment (>2 years) with the drug by serially monitoring changes in visual function over a 1-year period of continued therapy. We also followed up patients who discontinued VGB to see whether alternative therapies are effective. Methods: Fifteen of 17 patients who continued VGB therapy had visual-function testing (visual acuity, color vision, kinetic and static perimetry) every 3 months for 1 year. Eighteen patients who discontinued VGB were given alternative antiepileptic drugs (AEDs); their seizure responses were measured after ,3 months of treatment. Results: Patients continuing VGB showed no worsening of visual acuity, color vision, or visual-field constriction beyond that measured in the initial test. Many patients who discontinued VGB had good seizure control with either newer or previously unsuccessful AEDs. Conclusions: For patients who have an excellent response to VGB and only mild visual changes, continued therapy may be safe with close visual monitoring. Patients who do not have a significant reduction in seizures or who experience considerable visual dysfunction with VGB may respond well to alternative therapies. [source] Achieving Quality in Clinical Decision Making: Cognitive Strategies and Detection of BiasACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 11 2002Pat Croskerry MD Clinical decision making is a cornerstone of high-quality care in emergency medicine. The density of decision making is unusually high in this unique milieu, and a combination of strategies has necessarily evolved to manage the load. In addition to the traditional hypothetico-deductive method, emergency physicians use several other approaches, principal among which are heuristics. These cognitive short-cutting strategies are especially adaptive under the time and resource limitations that prevail in many emergency departments (EDs), but occasionally they fail. When they do, we refer to them as cognitive errors. They are costly but highly preventable. It is important that emergency physicians be aware of the nature and extent of these heuristics and biases, or cognitive dispositions to respond (CDRs). Thirty are catalogued in this article, together with descriptions of their properties as well as the impact they have on clinical decision making in the ED. Strategies are delineated in each case, to minimize their occurrence. Detection and recognition of these cognitive phenomena are a first step in achieving cognitive de-biasing to improve clinical decision making in the ED. [source] "It wasn't ,let's get pregnant and go do it':" Decision Making in Lesbian Couples Planning Motherhood via Donor InseminationFAMILY RELATIONS, Issue 4 2004Jennifer M. Chabot The process that lesbian couples experienced in using donor insemination (DI) to become parents was examined in this study through interviews of 10 lesbians. Using a decision-making framework embedded in feminist theory, results identified the major decisions involved that conceptualized the transition to parenthood and describe how these decisions were experienced. [source] Project Appraisal and Capital Investment Decision Making in the Scottish Water IndustryFINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY & MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2000Paul Coleshill Restructuring the Scottish water industry has changed the way in which both project appraisal and capital investment decisions are performed. This article examines the project appraisal and subsequent capital investment decision in the case of a reed bed sewage treatment scheme which is compared with a more traditional scheme. Although the capital profiles of the schemes are similar there are major differences in the revenue costs. In addition, there are potential public benefits to the reed bed scheme. A comparison is made of management mechanisms in the pre-1996 water industry with that of restructured water authorities. In the pre-1996 water industry, local authorities had a broad remit which encouraged them to value these factors, in effect an implicit social account. The creation of water authorities with narrow remits and specific performance measures, constructed a framework that does not support the integration of social accounts into the decision making process. The paper demonstrates that investment appraisal is a product of the institutional framework in which the decisions are made. As that framework changes, mechanisms and measures of accountability shift in parallel. [source] Poliheuristic Theory, Bargaining, and Crisis Decision MakingFOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 4 2007Min Ye In the past decade, the application of the Poliheuristic (PH) theory to foreign policy decisions of various types, by numerous leaders, and in association with different research methods, has demonstrated its theoretical merit in integrating the divided rational choice and psychological/cognitive approaches. This article argues for a complementary relationship between PH and formal theory. On the one hand, PH can provide a framework in which abstract formal models can be connected with specific domestic as well as international circumstances. On the other hand, formal theory sharpens the rational analysis used in the second conceptual stage of PH. In this study, I formulate a revised Rubinstein bargaining model with war as an outside option and apply it to Chinese crisis decision making during the Second and Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis. In sum, this study makes three contributions to the literature on international crises and foreign policy analysis. First, it gives formal explanations on how PH can contribute to the game-theoretic approach in foreign policy analysis. Second, it presents what Bueno de Mesquita and Lalman (1992) called a "domestic politics version" of the canonical Rubinstein bargaining game, connecting international interactions with individual participants' domestic politics. Finally, it provides a way to test abstract game-theoretic models in particular domestic and international contexts of foreign policy making. [source] Reinvigorating the Study of Foreign Policy Decision Making: Toward a Constructivist ApproachFOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 1 2007DAVID PATRICK HOUGHTON For many years, the study of foreign policy analysis (FPA) has been a kind of free-floating enterprise, logically unconnected to the main theories of international relations (IR). Sometimes, it has been subsumed under the liberal or pluralist sections of textbooks, and at other times placed within a discussion of realism. But the logical connections to both of these paradigms were always strained. The appeal of FPA approaches has also waxed and waned over the years, in part because these approaches do not appear to "fit" anywhere within the framework of the larger debates going on in IR. This article suggests that a dialogue with social constructivism provides the most logical base from which to launch a revitalized approach to FPA, especially the cognitive psychological approach to the study of foreign policy. If the FPA agenda is to be reinvigorated and taken more seriously outside the subfield itself, this article suggests, it must hitch its wagon to some of the critical substantive debates going on in IR theory today. Indeed, there are already some signs that the cognitive approach to FPA in particular is increasingly being associated with this larger body of theory. [source] Climate Science and Decision MakingGEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 3 2007Kirstin Dow This article reviews progress in understanding climate variability and change and how such understanding might better contribute to decision processes and the design of decision support tools. We emphasize the value of collaborative engagement between climate information users and scientists to continue innovation in this area. Our assessment presents opportunities for geographic perspectives and insights that can increase understanding of the physical processes causing interannual variability and improve climate model output for climate impact assessment. As decision-makers' interests expand to address adaptation, nature-society research can also contribute significantly to understanding the diversity of climate information users, their evolving needs, and to the development of strategies for communicating risk and uncertainty. [source] Validation of Numerical Ground Water Models Used to Guide Decision MakingGROUND WATER, Issue 2 2004Ahmed E. Hassan Many sites of ground water contamination rely heavily on complex numerical models of flow and transport to develop closure plans. This complexity has created a need for tools and approaches that can build confidence in model predictions and provide evidence that these predictions are sufficient for decision making. Confidence building is a long-term, iterative process and the author believes that this process should be termed model validation. Model validation is a process, not an end result. That is, the process of model validation cannot ensure acceptable prediction or quality of the model. Rather, it provides an important safeguard against faulty models or inadequately developed and tested models. If model results become the basis for decision making, then the validation process provides evidence that the model is valid for making decisions (not necessarily a true representation of reality). Validation, verification, and confirmation are concepts associated with ground water numerical models that not only do not represent established and generally accepted practices, but there is not even widespread agreement on the meaning of the terms as applied to models. This paper presents a review of model validation studies that pertain to ground water flow and transport modeling. Definitions, literature debates, previously proposed validation strategies, and conferences and symposia that focused on subsurface model validation are reviewed and discussed. The review is general and focuses on site-specific, predictive ground water models used for making decisions regarding remediation activities and site closure. The aim is to provide a reasonable starting point for hydrogeologists facing model validation for ground water systems, thus saving a significant amount of time, effort, and cost. This review is also aimed at reviving the issue of model validation in the hydrogeologic community and stimulating the thinking of researchers and practitioners to develop practical and efficient tools for evaluating and refining ground water predictive models. [source] Generalized consistency and intensity vectors for comparison matricesINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, Issue 12 2007L. D'Apuzzo A crucial problem in a decision-making process is the determination of a scale of relative importance for a set X = {x1, x2,..., xn} of alternatives either with respect to a criterion C or an expert E. A widely used tool in Multicriteria Decision Making is the pairwise comparison matrix A = (aij), where aij is a positive number expressing how much the alternative xi is preferred to the alternative xj. Under a suitable hypothesis of no indifference and transitivity over the matrix A = (aij), the actual qualitative ranking on the set X is achievable. Then a vector w may represent the actual ranking at two different levels: as an ordinal evaluation vector, or as an intensity vector encoding information about the intensities of the preferences. In this article we focus on the properties of a pairwise comparison matrix A = (aij) linked to the existence of intensity vectors. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 22: 1287,1300, 2007. [source] Naive Decision Making: Mathematics Applied to the Social World by T. W. KörnerINTERNATIONAL STATISTICAL REVIEW, Issue 1 2009Susan Starkings No abstract is available for this article. [source] Using Role-Play Scenarios in the IR Classroom: An Examination of Exercises on Peacekeeping Operations and Foreign Policy Decision MakingINTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 1 2004Carolyn M. Shaw Use of role-play scenarios in the classroom is just one of a number of active learning techniques that are being used more and more frequently to convey the more abstract concepts of international relations (IR) to students in a meaningful way. This paper examines the value of two specific role-play exercises used in an introduction to international relations course on the topics of peacekeeping and foreign policy decision making. The value of such interactive exercises is laid out in a section examining what learning objectives can be achieved by using role-play scenarios. These include promoting student interaction and input, and promoting student curiosity and creativity. The preparations necessary for conducting such an exercise are laid out, followed by a description of the exercises as they were conducted in the classroom. Finally, an assessment of the exercises provides useful feedback on the degree to which specific learning objectives were achieved, and how such exercises can be modified to be even more effective. [source] The Process-Outcome Connection in Foreign Policy Decision Making: A Quantitative Study Building on GroupthinkINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2002Mark Schafer This article investigates whether certain factors pertaining to the process of foreign policy decision making have a measurable, qualitative effect on foreign policy outcomes. The research is grounded in the groupthink literature but incorporates different dimensions of similar underlying notions from other international relations areas as well. Three different types of process factors are investigated: situational factors, such as stress and time constraints; factors associated with the structure of the group; and information processing factors. We test the influence of these factors on two types of outcomes,a decision's effect on national interests and its effect on the level of international conflict. We investigate this link in 31 cases of decision from 1975 through 1993. Scores for the outcome variables are based on survey responses from 21 foreign policy experts. For the process variables, we develop sets of operational definitions and then code each case based on extensive reading of case-study materials. OLS regression models are used to assess the hypotheses. We find that situation variables matter very little in terms of affecting outcomes and quality of information processing. On the other hand, both group structural factors and information processing are significantly related to outcomes in terms of national interests and level of international conflict. [source] Coalition Cabinet Decision Making: Institutional and Psychological Factors,INTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2008Juliet Kaarbo This essay reviews the intersection between institutional and psychological conditions that occurs in multiparty coalition cabinets and the effects on foreign policy and decision making. Parallel research in social psychology and foreign policy can provide clues to the underlying mechanisms linking institutional context to policymaking and policy choices. The psychological processes involved in group polarization, persuasion, and other influence strategies as well as psychological factors affecting the quality of decision making are important in coalition cabinets and are reinforced by the particular institutional dynamics of multiparty governance. Indeed, this essay proposes that future research focus on contingency factors in the policymaking process, given the competing views on the effects of multiple advocacy on the quality of decision making and on the types of foreign policies associated with multiparty cabinets. More broadly, this essay supports the view that a highly structural understanding of the effects of institutions on politics and policies is incomplete and that research on the interplay among structures and human agents is critical. [source] The Impact of Affective Reactions on Risky Decision Making in Accounting ContextsJOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 5 2002Kimberly Moreno In this study we examine whether managers' affective reactions influence their risk,taking tendencies in capital budgeting decisions. Prior research on risky decision making indicates that decision makers are often risk averse when choosing among alternatives that yield potential gains, and risk taking when the alternatives yield losses. The results reported here indicate that negative or positive affective reactions can change this commonly found risky behavior. Managers were generally risk avoiding (taking) for gains (losses) in the absence of affective reactions, as predicted by prospect theory. However, when affect was present, they tended to reject investment alternatives that elicited negative affect and accept alternatives that elicited positive affect, resulting in risk taking (avoiding) in gain (loss) contexts. The results also indicate that affective reactions can influence managers to choose alternatives with lower economic value, suggesting that managers consider both financial data and affective reactions when evaluating the utility of a decision alternative. These findings point to the importance of considering affective reactions when attempting to understand and predict risky decision making in accounting contexts. [source] The Influence of Identification Decision and DNA Evidence on Juror Decision Making,JOURNAL OF APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 9 2009Joanna D. Pozzulo This study examined the influence of identification decision type and DNA evidence on mock jurors' ratings of evidence reliability, witness credibility, and verdict decisions. Type of identification decision was found to influence jurors' perceptions of the reliability of eyewitnesses' descriptions of various details related to the crime. Specifically, positive identifications resulted in the highest reliability ratings. Type of DNA evidence presented was found to impact on ratings of expert witness reliability. Overall, inconsistent DNA evidence that was statistical in nature resulted in the lowest reliability ratings. DNA-consistent evidence led to more convictions than did DNA-inconsistent evidence. Furthermore, jurors rendered more guilty verdicts when witnesses made a non-identification or a positive identification, as compared to a foil identification. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||