2,265 research outputs found

    Constrained Rationality: Formal Value-Driven Enterprise Knowledge Management Modelling and Analysis Framework for Strategic Business, Technology and Public Policy Decision Making & Conflict Resolution

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    The complexity of the strategic decision making environments, in which busi- nesses and governments live in, makes such decisions more and more difficult to make. People and organizations with access to the best known decision support modelling and analysis tools and methods cannot seem to benefit from such re- sources. We argue that the reason behind the failure of most current decision and game theoretic methods is that these methods are made to deal with operational and tactical decisions, not strategic decisions. While operational and tactical decisions are clear and concise with limited scope and short-term implications, allowing them to be easily formalized and reasoned about, strategic decisions tend to be more gen- eral, ill-structured, complex, with broader scope and long-term implications. This research work starts with a review of the current dominant modelling and analysis approaches, their strengths and shortcomings, and a look at how pioneers in the field criticize these approaches as restrictive and unpractical. Then, the work goes on to propose a new paradigm shift in how strategic decisions and conflicts should be modelled and analyzed. Constrained Rationality is a formal qualitative framework, with a robust method- ological approach, to model and analyze ill-structured strategic single and multi- agent decision making situations and conflicts. The framework brings back the strategic decision making problem to its roots, from being an optimization/efficiency problem about evaluating predetermined alternatives to satisfy predetermined pref- erences or utility functions, as most current decision and game theoretic approaches treats it, to being an effectiveness problem of: 1) identifying and modelling explic- itly the strategic and conflicting goals of the involved agents (also called players and decision makers in our work), and the decision making context (the external and internal constraints including the agents priorities, emotions and attitudes); 2) finding, uncovering and/or creating the right set of alternatives to consider; and then 3) reasoning about the ability of each of these alternatives to satisfy the stated strategic goals the agents have, given their constraints. Instead of assuming that the agents’ alternatives and preferences are well-known, as most current decision and game theoretic approaches do, the Constrained Rationality framework start by capturing and modelling clearly the context of the strategic decision making situation, and then use this contextual knowledge to guide the process of finding the agents’ alternatives, analyzing them, and choosing the most effective one. The Constrained Rationality framework, at its heart, provides a novel set of modelling facilities to capture the contextual knowledge of the decision making sit- uations. These modelling facilities are based on the Viewpoint-based Value-Driven - Enterprise Knowledge Management (ViVD-EKM) conceptual modelling frame- work proposed by Al-Shawa (2006b), and include facilities: to capture and model the goals and constraints of the different involved agents, in the decision making situation, in complex graphs within viewpoint models; and to model the complex cause-effect interrelationships among theses goals and constraints. The framework provides a set of robust, extensible and formal Goal-to-Goal and Constraint-to Goal relationships, through which qualitative linguistic value labels about the goals’ op- erationalization, achievement and prevention propagate these relationships until they are finalized to reflect the state of the goals’ achievement at any single point of time during the situation. The framework provides also sufficient, but extensible, representation facilities to model the agents’ priorities, emotional valences and attitudes as value properties with qualitative linguistic value labels. All of these goals and constraints, and the value labels of their respective value properties (operationalization, achievement, prevention, importance, emotional valence, etc.) are used to evaluate the different alternatives (options, plans, products, product/design features, etc.) agents have, and generate cardinal and ordinal preferences for the agents over their respective alternatives. For analysts, and decision makers alike, these preferences can easily be verified, validates and traced back to how much each of these alternatives con- tribute to each agent’s strategic goals, given his constraints, priorities, emotions and attitudes. The Constrained Rationality framework offers a detailed process to model and analyze decision making situations, with special paths and steps to satisfy the spe- cific needs of: 1) single-agent decision making situations, or multi-agent situations in which agents act in an individualistic manner with no regard to others’ current or future options and decisions; 2) collaborative multi-agent decision making situ- ations, where agents disclose their goals and constraints, and choose from a set of shared alternatives one that best satisfy the collective goals of the group; and 3) adversarial competitive multi-agent decision making situations (called Games, in gamete theory literature, or Conflicts, in the broader management science litera- ture). The framework’s modelling and analysis process covers also three types of con- flicts/games: a) non-cooperative games, where agents can take unilateral moves among the game’s states; b) cooperative games, with no coalitions allowed, where agents still act individually (not as groups/coalitions) taking both unilateral moves and cooperative single-step moves when it benefit them; and c) cooperative games, with coalitions allowed, where the games include, in addition to individual agents, agents who are grouped in formal alliances/coalitions, giving themselves the ability to take multi-step group moves to advance their collective position in the game. ...

    The role of subjective factors in local authorities' action on climate change in South West England

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    This study examines the question of whether subjective attitudes to climate change play a significant part in the determination of local authorities’ policy and actions on climate change mitigation; whether the personal views of council members and officers about climate change, their beliefs, fears and attitudes affect the outcomes in terms of policy and action, or whether organizational culture, norms and collectively policed limits to discourse have this effect; or whether, on the contrary, the influence of central government policy is so overwhelming that action and policy is determined almost wholly by external and objective influences. The research fills a gap in the literature in studying both subjective attitudes and socio-cultural factors together with external and material factors in order to assess the importance of the former. Interviews with officers and members of local authorities in the South West of England and other data identify that considerable reductions in councils’ own greenhouse emissions have been achieved, not wholly due to cutbacks and other contextual factors, but policy for more widespread carbon reduction in their geographical areas was more limited. Central government finance and policy were key determinants of action in all the local authorities studied, but significant differences between authorities are linked to differences in the prevalence of climate change dismissal. Psycho-social methods are used to achieve a more subtle and coherent view of individual attitudes to climate change, to identify relevant aspects of corporate culture, and to tease out how objective influences such as financial incentives and political pressures interact with these attitudes. The study finds that climate dismissal and denial present obstacles to carbon reduction initiatives and reduce the number which emerge; it also identifies the way organizational culture, including the growing dominance of financial and economic discourse, can constrain possibilities and proposals. Based on the interview data, I argue that financial incentives not only encourage but enable discussion of carbon reduction measures, and that severe budgetary constraints undermine a sense of agency as well as curtailing long term ambition in carbon reduction. Perceived lack of agency, at times deployed as a ‘tool of innocence’, also emerges as a key contributor to climate change dismissal, as well as more specific political and personal attitudes. Implications for policy at local and national level are derived from the research findings

    Towards a value-based theory of sustainability framing

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    A thesis submitted to the faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, January 2018The goal of this research was to develop a comprehensive theoretical perspective on values and framing of sustainability in the context of strategic transformation in an organisational field. This perspective aimed to address the gap in understanding of the role of values within and across framing levels in the sustainability discourse. The goal of this research was accomplished in two stages. Firstly, a conceptual review of the previous research was used to develop an initial model of the valuebased framing of sustainability. Secondly, a case study based on framing analysis was conducted to verify the model. To accommodate the diversity of framing sources, a framing analysis methodology was developed based on the previous methodologies of value elicitation and framing research. The results confirmed the usefulness of the framing analysis in understanding the meaning construction and the outcomes of change, conflict, or resistance to change in strategic transformation. Additional insights from the empirical case revealed both value-framing divergence and convergence and the influence of the roles of frame actors in such processes. The framing analysis also indicated that some values might be associated with silencing sensemaking. The original contribution is three-fold. Firstly, an integrated model was developed based on the conceptual synthesis and the case study. The model differentiates sensemaking, sensegiving, and silencing sensemaking as sub-processes within the framing mechanism of sustainability transformation. The model clarifies the role of values as inputs, outputs, and strategic devices. The model outlines the processes of value-framing divergence and convergence. This model forms the foundation for the value-based theory of sustainability framing. Secondly, a new approach to framing analysis was developed that facilitates analysis of diverse communication styles in a comparable way. Thirdly, this research resulted in the development of an agenda for the advancement of the value-based theory.XL201

    Exploring the well-being and ecosystem services relationship through the capability approach

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    This thesis investigates the relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being through a case study in Cornwall, UK. The study examines how aspects of the economic and socio-cultural environment interact and influence participants’ constructs of well-being, as well as mediate, through mechanisms of access, their ability to benefit from ecosystem services. The research design is informed by Sen’s capability approach as well as insights from literatures on access theory, human well-being, and ecosystem services. While Sen’s approach potentially offers a novel means to explore the ecosystem services and well-being relationship, it is currently underutilised in this research context. Adopting an in-depth qualitative research approach, data collection took place over 21 months with the same cohort of participants, who face various types of socio-economic disadvantage. Focus groups, life history interviews, photo elicitation, and semi-structured interviews were used to (a) elicit local constructs of well-being, (b) explore the role of ecosystem services for well-being, and (c) identify mechanisms of access that mediate participants’ ability to benefit from valued ecosystem services. The analysis shows that capabilities are interlinked and multidimensional. Therefore, existing socio-economic constraints have important implications for capability formation, and also lead to a series of trade-offs in converting capabilities into well-being. The findings deliver new insights into existing conceptualizations of the ecosystem services and well-being relationship, highlighting the role of cultural practices as sources of well-being, and identifying cultural ecosystem services as an overarching theme rather than a discrete service type. Four types of access mechanisms emerge from the data, including psychological mechanisms, demonstrating that physical distance is an insufficient indicator of exposure to ecosystem services. The thesis concludes by suggesting that developing a capability theory for ecosystem services could aid disaggregated analyses and deliver more nuanced insights into the complex links between ecosystem services and well-being, by shifting the focus from outcomes to opportunities and the processes that contribute to particular outcomes

    The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits

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    This paper explores the interface between personality psychology and economics. We examine the predictive power of personality and the stability of personality traits over the life cycle. We develop simple analytical frameworks for interpreting the evidence in personality psychology and suggest promising avenues for future research.personality traits, lifecycle effects, psychology, economics

    The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits

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    This paper explores the interface between personality psychology andeconomics. We examine the predictive power of personality and the stability ofpersonality traits over the life cycle. We develop simple analytical frameworksfor interpreting the evidence in personality psychology and suggest promisingavenues for future research.education, training and the labour market;

    The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits

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    This paper explores the interface between personality psychology and economics. We examine the predictive power of personality and the stability of personality traits over the life cycle. We develop simple analytical frameworks for interpreting the evidence in personality psychology and suggest promising avenues for future research.lifecycle effects, personality traits

    Experience representation in information systems

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    This thesis looks into the ways subjective dimension of experience could be represented in artificial, non-biological systems, in particular information systems. The pivotal assumption is that experience as opposed to mainstream thinking in information science is not equal to knowledge, so that experience is a broader term which encapsulates both knowledge and subjective, affective component of experience, which so far has not been properly embraced by knowledge representation theories. This is the consequence of dominance of behaviourism and later cognitivism in the XXth-century science, which tended to reduce mind and experience respectively to behavioural expressions and discrete states relating mindful creature to external world, meanwhile the processes of knowing to manipulations with symbols. We support the view that traditional knowledge representation approaches will not suffice to embrace the entirety of mental phenomena. We propose that in order to understand, represent and model the thinking and behavioural processes of mindful entities in information systems we need to look into the phenomenon of experience beyond the boundaries of knowledge. At the same time we propose to look at experience in a more structured way and try to capture it in formal terms, making it amenable to symbolic representation, being aware at the same time of innate limitations of symbolic representations compared to the natural representations in biological bodies. Under the paradigm of mind intentionality, which assumes that minds have this special intrinsic feature that they can relate to external word and thus are about external world, it can be asserted that experience is one in all intentional mind state composed of knowledge that is the intentional contents of this state, the world-to-mind relation, meanwhile its inseparable subjective component is composed of subjective feelings of the mindful individual corresponding to this intentional mind states. If so, we propose that experience can be defined as two-dimensional mental phenomena consisting of mental states that have both knowledge and affective component. Consequently we suggest that experience can be represented as pairs of elements of sets K, and A, where K represents knowledge, hence contents of remembered intentional states of mind (i.e. intentional contents of experience), whereas A represents affect, i.e. the subjective qualitative component of experience. iii Importantly, it does not particularly matter if we define experience as a set of mind states or a mind state process for assessing if the overall relation between knowledge and subjective experience that we have outlined above is valid. Whether there is knowing rather then knowledge or experiencing rather than experience which seems increasingly a contemporary principle, remains a fascinating philosophical, ontological to be more specific, question, however it falls beyond the scope of the thesis and therefore we shall not concentrate on it herewith. Furthermore we propose that the subjective component of experience is also intrinsically intentionalistic, but meanwhile the intentionality in case of knowing is directed outward, to the external world, in case of feeling it is directed inwards to the within of the experiencing mindbody. We tap into the contemporary thinking in the philosophy of mind that the primordial, intrinsic intentionalistic capacity of mind is non-linguistic, as there must be other more primordial, non-linguistic form of intentionality that allows human children, as well as other language-capable animals, to learn language in first place. Contemporary cognitive neuroscience suggest that this capacity is tightly related to affect. We also embrace the theories of consciousness and self coming from brain scientists such as Damasio and Panksepp who believe that there is a primordial component of self, a so called protoself composed of the raw feelings coming from within the body, which are representations of bodily states in the mind, and have strictly subjective character. Therefore we can look at this compound of primordial feelings as a mirror in which external world reflects via the interface of the senses. This results in experience that has this conceptually dual, yet united within the conscious mindbody, composition of intentional contents that is knowledge and subjective component that is built up by feelings coming from within the experiencing mindbody. For it is problematic to state sharply either that this composition is dual or united we can refer to these two separately considered aspects of experience either as components or dimensions. In this thesis we pay particular attention to the role the affective component of experience plays in the behaviour of organisms, and we use the concept of rational agency to discuss the relations between agent experience and behaviour. This role is primarily about motivation and experience vividness, i.e. how easily experiential states can be retrieved from memory. The affective dimension of experience determines the drivers for agent action and influences the remembering and forgetting (memory) processes that experience is prone to. We reflect on how the above presented framework could enhance one of the most popular rational agency models: the Believes Desires Intentions model (BDI) based on Bratmann’s account of practical reason that has dominated information science and artificial intelligence literature. Inspired by Davidson, who opposing Hume’s account that the passions (desires) drive action while reason (belief) merely directs its force, concluded that iv “(...) belief and desire seem equally to be causal conditions of action. But (...) desire is more basic in that if we know enough about a person’s desires, we can work out what he believes, while the reverse does not hold.” (Davidson, 2004) we conclude that in so far as BDI model approaches them, desires are sort of beliefs. Indeed a desire in the above sense is a verbalised desire, i.e. in order for a proposition to be included in the deliberation an agent must have internally verbalize it and accept it by which he converts it into a belief. As a result an agent acquires a belief about its desire. Apart from desires made thus explicit and becoming beliefs there are implicit experiential states that directly influence behaviour, these are not embraced by the Desires set in the BDI and other instrumentalist rationality models as these currently do not have adequate forms of representation. If this is so, the BDI models looses its D creating a gap which must be filled in, which we try to do with the subjective dimension of experience. Under such an account each belief, either the proper one or about the desire, represented formally with a proposition should have an extra component added which would stand for the subjective affective state to this belief. Some preliminary suggestions how this could be implemented are proposed and discussed. The central proposition of this thesis states that experience, broadly understood as the entirety of contents and quality of a conscious mind state, can be satisfactorily represented in information systems, and any information system which objective is to emulate natural agent behaviour with satisfactory faithfulness cannot do without a sound experience representation framework. To achieve this it is necessary to realize and accept, based on convincing evidence from neuroscience, that the missing subjective component of experience is affect that forms and integral part of natural agent’s experience, and determines, or at least impacts profoundly the behaviour of natural agents. Relating affect to knowledge would result in a satisfactory approximation of experience. It is to realize as well that the subjective dimension of experience, classified as affect, is not entirely private, subjective epiphenomenal entity but rather can be studied in objective terms as neurological correlates in the brain following account of emotion and affect as fostered by contemporary neuroscience. By identifying affective correlates of intentional contents of states of mind, which build up knowledge, we can exploit a broader concept experience for the purpose of more accurate emulation of natural agents’ thinking process and behaviour in information systems. This thesis presents and discusses a bulk of evidence coming mainly from three fields: information science, philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience that led us to the above stated conclusions, as well as establishes a framework for experience representation in information systems

    Undergraduate representations of management and the possibilities of critical management education - the case of Portuguese management education.

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    Mann (2004: 208) identifies three components of emotional labour: 'The faking of emotion that is not felt and/or the hiding of emotion that is felt, and the performance of emotion management in order to meet expectations within a work environment. Nurses working in prison in England and Wales have a dual role; that of both carer and custodian. This thesis examines the emotional labour of nurses working in adult prisons who undertake a dual role in both caring and custody. A qualitative, reflexive methodology was adopted with a postmodern philosophical foundation. Phase one of the study involved semi-structured interviews with nine qualified nurses from three adult prisons: two male establishments and one female. In phase two of the study, two of these nine nurses entered into a supervisory relationship with the researcher. Monthly clinical supervision sessions were held with both nurses over six months. Findings from this study suggest that the nurse working in prison experiences emotional labour as a consequence of four key relationships: the relationship with the prisoner patient, the relationship with officer colleagues, and the relationship with the Institution; the fourth relationship centres on the contradictory discourses the nurse engages with internally, and is referred to as the 'intra-nurse' relationship. This relationship involves on-going internal dialogue between the two selves of the nurse: the professional self and the emotional 'feeling' self. In order to manage the emotion work inherent in prison work, it is suggested that the development of emotional intelligence through clinical supervision and reflective practice is of significant benefit to both health care and discipline staff
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