Negotiation in strategy making teams : group support systems and the process of cognitive change

This paper reports on the use of a Group Support System (GSS) to explore at a micro level some of the processes manifested when a group is negotiating strategy-processes of social and psychological negotiation. It is based on data from a series of interventions with senior management teams of three operating companies comprising a multi-national organization, and with a joint meeting subsequently involving all of the previous participants. The meetings were concerned with negotiating a new strategy for the global organization. The research involved the analysis of detailed time series data logs that exist as a result of using a GSS that is a reflection of cognitive theory

From the beginning: negotiation in community evaluation

This article focuses on negotiation and discusses its relevance for evaluators. Given the impetus for participatory evaluation, evaluators would benefit from improving skills that enable them to make collaborative decisions and work alongside stakeholders, in particular in community evaluations. Negotiation skills are explored through post hoc reflection of a Sure Start programme evaluation in a UK setting. Literature on stakeholder involvement and negotiation is discussed together with the UK evaluation. Recommendations are made on how to utilize elements of negotiation in community programme evaluation. Key skills are highlighted, including attention to: working with emotional situations, face-giving, rapport and creativity, timing, perceptions and improvisation

A Comprehensive Star Rating Approach for Cruise Ships Based on Interactive Group Decision Making with Personalized Individual Semantics

This article proposes a comprehensive star rating approach for cruise ships by the combination of subject and objective evaluation. To do that, it firstly established a index system of star rating for cruise ships. Then, the modified TOPSIS is adopted to tackle objective data for obtaining star ratings for basic cruise indicators and service capabilities of cruise ships. Thus, the concept of distributed linguistic star rating function (DLSRF) is defined to analyze the subjective evaluation from experts and users. Hence, a novel weight calculation method with interactive group decision making is presented to assign the importance of the main indicators. Particularly, in order to enable decision makers to effectively deal with the uncertainty in this star rating process, it adopts the personalized individual semantics (PIS) model. Finally, data of nine cruise ships is collected to obtain their final star rating results and some suggestions for improving cruise service capabilities and star indicators were put forward.National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) 71971135,72001134,72071056 China Scholarship Council 202108310183 Innovative Talent Training Project of Graduate Students in Shanghai Maritime University of China 2021YBR00

Future scenarios to inspire innovation

In recent years and accelerated by the economic and financial crisis, complex global issues have moved to the forefront of policy making. These grand challenges require policy makers to address a variety of interrelated issues, which are built upon yet uncoordinated and dispersed bodies of knowledge. Due to the social dynamics of innovation, new socio-technical subsystems are emerging, however there is lack of exploitation of innovative solutions. In this paper we argue that issues of how knowledge is represented can have a part in this lack of exploitation. For example, when drivers of change are not only multiple but also mutable, it is not sensible to extrapolate the future from data and relationships of the past. This paper investigates ways in which futures thinking can be used as a tool for inspiring actions and structures that address the grand challenges. By analysing several scenario cases, elements of good practice and principles on how to strengthen innovation systems through future scenarios are identified. This is needed because innovation itself needs to be oriented along more sustainable pathways enabling transformations of socio-technical systems

Design as communication in micro-strategy — strategic sensemaking and sensegiving mediated through designed artefacts.

This paper relates key concepts of strategic cognition in microstrategy to design practice. It considers the potential roles of designers' output in strategic sensemaking and sensegiving. Designed artifacts play well-known roles as communication media; sketches, renderings, models, and prototypes are created to explore and test possibilities and to communicate these options within and outside the design team. This article draws on design and strategy literature to propose that designed artifacts can and do play a role as symbolic communication resources in sensemaking and sensegiving activities that impact strategic decision making and change. Extracts from interviews with three designers serve as illustrative examples. This article is a call for further empirical exploration of such a complex subject

Exploring Entrepreneurial Skills and Competencies in Farm Tourism

Diversification to farm tourism is increasingly seen as a viable development strategy to promote a more diverse and sustainable rural economy and to counter declining farm incomes. However, our understanding of the dynamics of the modern farm tourism business and the entrepreneurial and competitive skills farmers require in making the transition from agriculture to a diversified - and service based - enterprise remains limited. Hence, the aim of this paper is to explore the range of skills and competencies that farmers in the North West of England identify as important when adopting a diversification strategy to farm tourism. With the findings indicating that that whilst a range of managerial skills are valued by farmers, they lack many of the additional business and entrepreneurial competencies required for success. Moreover, this paper acknowledges the need to generate consensus on the requisite skill-set that farm tourism operators require, along with a need for a currently fragmented rural tourism literature to acknowledge the significance of rural entrepreneurship and the characteristics of successful farmers and farm tourism ventures

Bargaining Practices: Negotiating the Kampala Compromise for the International Criminal Court

At the International Criminal Court\u27s (ICC) Review Conference in 2010, the ICC\u27s Assembly of States Parties (ASP) agreed upon a definition of the crime of aggression, jurisdictional conditions, and a mechanism for its entry into force (the Kampala Compromise ). These amendments give the ICC jurisdiction to prosecute political and military leaders of states for planning, preparing, initiating, or executing illegal wars, beginning as early as January 2017. This article explains the bargaining practices of the diplomats that gave rise to this historic development in international law. This article argues that the international-practices framework, as currently conceived, does not adequately capture the role sincerity played in the negotiations. Sincerity was an international practice, but not a performance. It follows that the international practices framework should be adjusted to accommodate the decisive role of sincerity, a special nonperformative international practice, in the face-to-face interactions of international politics and diplomacy. The remainder of the article lays out the international-practices framework and explains the place of performances within it. The article then introduces the concept of sincerity as a social practice. The second half of the article discusses some ways that sincerity played a role in the negotiations. The article concludes that sincerity is a special kind of international practice: It cannot be a performance, but it can be an international practice, and an effective one at that

The chinese business negotiation process: a socio-cultural analysis

Hoogovens Steel (HS) is a vertically integrated steel company, which until 1995 was functionally structured. During the eighties the steel market became saturated and more heterogeneous. In order to remain a flexible, market-oriented company, HS changed its organizational structure, by introducing business units responsible for their own financial results. Nevertheless, it remained a vertically integrated steel producer. With the functional structure HS had used cost-based transfer prices. But following the introduction of the business units the question was raised as to whether the transfer pricing system should be changed. A business unit structure implies a decentralization of authority and the delegation of certain activities to the units, but vertically integrated production requires close relations between the various stages. This paper discusses the extent to which the tensions between decentralization and integration can be resolved through the coordination of internal transactions. After introducing the relevant theoretical concepts, the issues which emerged in discussions about the coordination of internal transactions at HS are discussed. Some possible solutions are evaluated on the basis of criteria derived from the theoretical concepts, and the choice made within HS is described. Finally, some conclusions are drawn regarding the significance of the theoretical concepts.