Simulation of Negotiation and Argumentation Protocols

Tato práce se zabývá komunikací v multiagentních systémech, a to konkrétně vyjednáváním a argumentací. Jsou popsány protokoly pro argumentaci a vyjednávání, a je uveden modelový příklad jejich využití. Je popsán hierarchický model důvěry v kontextu, který slouží agentům k reprezentaci jejich představ o systému. Pro tyto agenty je pak navržen argumentační protokol, kterým jsou řešeny konflikty.This work deals with communication in multiagent systems. The protocols for negotiation and argumentation are shown, and model example of their usage is described. We describe hierarchical model of trust in contexts, that is used for representation of agent's believes. The argumentation protocol for those agents is designed, and is used for solving conflicts.

Technic and Collaboration Breakdown Structures: Drivers of collaborative problem solving approaches in a supply chain context

Problem Solving Methodologies have been par excellence a cornerstone element of the firms’ strategy on achieving effective continuous improvement. But the enterprise evolution towards an extended environment characterized by network-based organization has radically changed the problem solving paradigms. This paper aims to propose a generic and collaborative methodology addressing more complex and distributed problems, dealing with Supply Chain issues and having a key role as a driver for building global competitive advantages and create superior performances at a Supply Chain level

Mary Douglas, risk and accounting failures.

Sociology and anthropology are especially valuable in providing a critical understanding of the risk-related implications of modernity. There has, however, been relatively little discussion of the work of Mary Douglas within accounting although her pioneering writings in the area of risk have been highly influential. This paper uses Douglas' cultural theory of risk to provide an alternative perspective on the demise of Enron and Andersen. The failure at Enron is interpreted through the grid-group model and analysed as a series of events that threaten to destabilize established cultures. Accounting is thus construed as an activity that exists on the margins of boundaries. There are two important conclusions drawn from the analysis. First, as the worldviews of both the individualist and hierarchical cultures became threatened by the ensuing crisis they collaborated to ensure their perpetuation. This also averted individuals from becoming susceptible to recruitment by subversive egalitarian groups. Second, the individualistic culture of Andersen shaped practices within the firm weakening its ability to act as a gatekeeper and therefore public accounting firms need to modify their cultures if they are to police the margins effectivel

Employee Stock Ownership and Financial Performance in European Countries: The Moderating Effects of Uncertainty Avoidance and Social Trust

This study investigates how the effect of employee stock ownership on financial performance may hinge on the diverse cultural and societal contexts of European countries. Based on agency and national culture theories, we hypothesize that the positive relationship between employee stock ownership and return on assets (ROA) is stronger in those nations with lower uncertainty avoidance and higher social trust. Using a multisource, time‐lagged, large‐scale dataset of 1,741 firms from 21 countries in Europe, our multilevel, random coefficient modeling analysis found evidence for these hypotheses, suggesting that uncertainty avoidance and social trust serve as important contextual cues in predicting the linkage between employee stock ownership and financial performance. Our supplemental analysis with distinction between the managerial and nonmanagerial employee stock ownership further indicates managerial employee stock ownership has a direct positive effect on ROA. Although nonmanagerial employee stock ownership had a nonsignificant association with ROA, the relationship was positive and significant when uncertainty avoidance was low and social trust was high. This research contributes to the existing literature by illuminating some of the contextual influences altering the effectiveness of employee stock ownership. Our findings also offer practical suggestions for effectively using employee stock ownership

From social context and resilience to performance through job satisfaction: A multilevel study over time

Giving the crucial role of organizational context in shaping individual attitudes and behaviors at work, in this research we studied the effects of collective work-unit Perceptions of Social Context (PoSC) on individual work resilience and two key individual outcomes: job satisfaction and job performance as rated by the supervisor. We theorized that collective PoSC act as antecedents of individual variables, and that individual job satisfaction mediates the relationship between collective PoSC and job performance, and between work resilience and job performance over time. A sample of 305 white-collar employees, clustered in 67 work-units, participated in the study. Hierarchical linear modeling highlighted that collective PoSC are significant related to individual work resilience. Moreover, results showed that individual job satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between collective PoSC and individual job performance and the relationship between individual work resilience and individual job performance. At a practical level, results suggest that interventions on collective PoSC may increase work resilience, job satisfaction and job performance over time at the individual level

A Goal-Directed Bayesian Framework for Categorization

Categorization is a fundamental ability for efficient behavioral control. It allows organisms to remember the correct responses to categorical cues and not for every stimulus encountered (hence eluding computational cost or complexity), and to generalize appropriate responses to novel stimuli dependant on category assignment. Assuming the brain performs Bayesian inference, based on a generative model of the external world and future goals, we propose a computational model of categorization in which important properties emerge. These properties comprise the ability to infer latent causes of sensory experience, a hierarchical organization of latent causes, and an explicit inclusion of context and action representations. Crucially, these aspects derive from considering the environmental statistics that are relevant to achieve goals, and from the fundamental Bayesian principle that any generative model should be preferred over alternative models based on an accuracy-complexity trade-off. Our account is a step toward elucidating computational principles of categorization and its role within the Bayesian brain hypothesis

Antecedents of trust across foci: a comparative study of Turkey and China

Instead of importing Western models of interpersonal trust, we adopted a qualitative approach to understand trust relationships from indigenous cultures' perspectives. We examined trust relationships directed at different foci in the organization (supervisor, peer, and subordinate) in two different countries, Turkey and China. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 Turkish and 30 Chinese employees working for a variety of large-scale organizations located in Istanbul, Turkey and Shenzhen, China. We report the content analysis of trust-building critical incidents narrated by the respondents. While the general antecedents of Ability, Benevolence, and Integrity were found to exist in both countries, Benevolence, with its culture-specific manifestations, played a very important role in trust-building across multiple foci in both countries. We also found that trust relationships in these two contexts tended to go beyond the professional domain, and to involve sharing of personal time, information, and space. Drawing on this evidence, we propose a trust-building process that is more affective in nature and which straddles both work and non-work domains

ILR Impact Brief - Building Trust and Cooperation in Boundary-Spanning Teams

[Excerpt] Knowledge workers engaged in interorganizational collaborative initiatives (i.e., boundary spanners) can actively build and maintain interpersonal trust through a multi-step “threat regulation” process. Designed to mitigate counterparts’ fears that harm will arise out of the cooperative effort, threat regulation involves 1) perspective-taking (understanding how others might perceive and experience the risks of cooperation); 2) threat-reducing behavior (intentional efforts to influence others’ negative emotions); and 3) reflection (self-assessment leading to self-corrective actions). When hierarchical authority is absent, which is common in collaborative projects, boundary-spanners can adopt these behaviors to influence others’ emotions so as to gain the requisite trust and cooperation

Control influence on trust and relational governance in the client-contractor dyad

The construction industry has in recent years witnessed a paradigm shift towards the use of more collaborative contracting relationships and integrated processes in an attempt to improve construction project delivery. Trust is central to the success of these contracting approaches and although efforts are usually aimed at improving trust relations in client-contractor relationships, there has so far been mixed findings on how trust is influenced by formal control mechanisms discharged via formal contracts. In construction contracting, there is therefore the need to investigate how different governance modes and control mechanisms deployed on construction projects are perceived by those being controlled and how this in turn influences trust. Through a critique of the extant literature on trust and control in construction, this study reveals that the trust-control relationship which can be both complimentary and supplementary has far reaching implications on the measurement/assessment of trust in the construction project context. The orientation of governance and control mechanisms selected by clients and the behavioural consequences of these from contractors can thus be used as a measure of the degree of trust that exists in the dyad

Effects of Violence on Youths\u27 Perceptions of Peer and Sibling Aggression

The present study examined the relationship between youth exposure to violence in the home and community and their perceptions of the acceptability of aggression in interactions involving peers and siblings. The importance of the context in which the violence occurs was investigated, as well the ability of parent-child attachment to buffer the effects of violence on aggressive attitudes. A diverse sample of 148 children, ages 9 to 14, completed measures of interparental, parent-child, and community aggression, as well as a measure of mother-child attachment. Youths also rated the acceptability of aggressive interactions between two peers and two siblings in written vignettes. Youths\u27 exposure to violence was related to perceptions of aggression as more acceptable, with parent-child aggression having the strongest association and community violence also having a unique contribution. Maternal attachment acted as a buffer between exposure to community violence and perceived acceptability of aggression, such that when exposed to high levels of community violence, youth with more secure maternal attachments perceived aggression as less acceptable than youths with less secure attachment. Finally, when examining peer and sibling interactions separately, parent-child conflict had the strongest relation with perceptions across contexts of peer and sibling aggression and community violence only predicted attitudes about peer aggression