1,517 research outputs found
Orchestrating corporate social responsibility in the multinational enterprise
Multinational enterprises (MNEs) invest significant resources in corporate social responsibility (CSR), but their attempts to build a global âsocial brandâ may clash with the execution of operational strategies at a subsidiary level. Using a game-theoretic model, this research addresses the complex interplay of different contingencies that shape the coordination and control challenges facing MNEs when they implement global CSR strategies, including brand spillovers, the risk of public scandals caused by irresponsible behavior, the size of the MNE network, as well as the roles played by non-governmental organizations and altruistic managers. Challenging the view of CSR as insurance against lapses of responsible conduct, our model shows that investment in social brands helps avoid irresponsible practices across the MNE network, thereby inducing subsidiaries to âwalk the talkâ
Utilitarian Collective Choice and Voting
In his seminal Social Choice and Individual Values, Kenneth Arrow stated that his theory applies to voting. Many voting theorists have been convinced that, on account of Arrowâs theorem, all voting methods must be seriously flawed. Arrowâs theory is strictly ordinal, the cardinal aggregation of preferences being explicitly rejected. In this paper I point out that all voting methods are cardinal and therefore outside the reach of Arrowâs result.
Parallel to Arrowâs ordinal approach, there evolved a consistent cardinal theory of collective choice. This theory, most prominently associated with the work of Harsanyi, continued the older utilitarian tradition in a more formal style. The purpose of this paper is to show that various derivations of utilitarian SWFs can also be used to derive utilitarian voting (UV). By this I mean a voting rule that allows the voter to score each alternative in accordance with a given scale. UV-k indicates a scale with k distinct values. The general theory leaves k to be determined on pragmatic grounds. A (1,0) scale gives approval voting. I prefer the scale (1,0,-1) and refer to the resulting voting rule as evaluative voting.
A conclusion of the paper is that the defects of conventional voting methods result not from Arrowâs theorem, but rather from restrictions imposed on votersâ expression of their preferences.
The analysis is extended to strategic voting, utilizing a novel set of assumptions regarding voter behavior
The Ultimate Solution to the Quantum Battle of the Sexes game
We present the unique solution to the Quantum Battle of the Sexes game. We
show the best result which can be reached when the game is played according to
Marinatto and Weber's scheme. The result which we put forward does not
surrender the criticism of previous works on the same topic.Comment: 8 page
Bayesian Nash Equilibria and Bell Inequalities
Games with incomplete information are formulated in a multi-sector
probability matrix formalism that can cope with quantum as well as classical
strategies. An analysis of classical and quantum strategy in a multi-sector
extension of the game of Battle of Sexes clarifies the two distinct roles of
nonlocal strategies, and establish the direct link between the true quantum
gain of game's payoff and the breaking of Bell inequalities.Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX JPSJ 2 column format, changes in sections 1, 3 and 4,
added reference
Ignorance based inference of optimality in thermodynamic processes
We derive ignorance based prior distribution to quantify incomplete
information and show its use to estimate the optimal work characteristics of a
heat engine.Comment: Latex, 10 pages, 3 figure
A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection in Games.
Abstract This paper presents a Downsian model of political competition in which parties have incomplete but richer information than voters on policy effects. Each party can observe a private signal of the policy effects, while voters cannot. In this setting, voters infer the policy effects from the party platforms. In this political game with private information, we show that there exist weak perfect Bayesian equilibria (WPBEs) at which the parties play different strategies, and thus, announce different platforms even when their signals coincide. This result is in contrast with the conclusion of the Median Voter Theorem in the classical Downsian model. Our equilibrium analysis suggests similarity between the set of WPBEs in this model and the set of uniformly perfect equilibria of Harsanyi and Selten (1988) in the model with completely informed parties which we studied in a previous pape
Identifying Surrogates for Heart and Ipsilateral Lung Dose to Guide Field Placement and Treatment Modality Selection during Virtual Simulation of Breast Radiotherapy
AIMS: Virtual simulation (VSim) of tangential photon fields is a common method of field localisation for breast radiotherapy. Heart and ipsilateral lung dose is unknown until the dosimetric plan is produced. If heart and ipsilateral lung tolerance doses are exceeded, this can prolong the pre-treatment pathway, particularly if a change of technique is required. The aim of this study was to identify predictive surrogates for heart and ipsilateral lung dose during VSim to aid optimum field placement and treatment modality selection. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Computed tomography data from 50 patients referred for left breast/chest wall radiotherapy were retrospectively analysed (model-building cohort). The prescribed dose was 40.05 Gy in 15 fractions using a tangential photon technique. The heart and ipsilateral lung contours were duplicated, cropped to within the field borders and labelled heart-in-field (HIF) and ipsilateral lung-in-field (ILF). The percentage of HIF (%HIF) and ILF (%ILF) was calculated and correlated with mean heart dose (MHD) and volume of the ipsilateral lung receiving 18 Gy (V18Gy). Linear regression models were calculated. A validation cohort of 10 left- and 10 right-sided cases with an anterior supraclavicular fossa (SCF) field, and 10 left- and 10 right-sided cases including the internal mammary nodes using a wide tangential technique and anterior SCF field, tested the predictive model. Threshold values for %HIF and %ILF were calculated for clinically relevant MHD and ipsilateral lung V18Gy tolerance doses. RESULTS: For the model-building cohort, the median %HIF and MHD were 2.6 (0.4-16.7) and 2.3 (1.2-8) Gy. The median %ILF and ipsilateral lung V18Gy were 12.1 (2.8-33.6) and 12.6 (3.3-35) %. There was a statistically significant strong positive correlation of %HIF with MHD (r2 = 0.97, P < 0.0001) and of %ILF with ipsilateral lung V18Gy (r2 = 0.99, P < 0.0001). For the validation cohort, the median %HIF and MHD were 3.9 (0.6-8) and 2.5 (1.4-4.7) Gy. The median %ILF and ipsilateral lung V18Gy were 20.1 (12.4-32.0) and 20.9 (12.4-34.4) %. The validation cohort confirmed that %HIF and %ILF continue to be predictive surrogates for heart and ipsilateral lung dose during VSim of left- and right-sided cases when including the SCF ± internal mammary nodes with a three-field photon technique. DISCUSSION: The ability to VSim breast radiotherapy (±nodal targets) and accurately predict the heart and ipsilateral lung doses on the dosimetric plan will ensure that tolerance doses are not exceeded, and identify early in the pre-treatment pathway those cases where alternative techniques or modalities should be considered
Examination of silver-graphite lithographically printed resistive strain sensors
This paper reports the design and manufacture of three differing types of resistive strain sensitive structures fabricated using the Conductive Lithographic Film (CLF) printing process. The structures, utilising two inks prepared with silver and graphite particulates as the conductive phase, have been analysed to determine electrical and mechanical properties with respect to strain, temperature and humidity when deposited on four alternative substrate materials (GlossArt, PolyArt, Teslin and Melinex)
Sequential Deliberation for Social Choice
In large scale collective decision making, social choice is a normative study
of how one ought to design a protocol for reaching consensus. However, in
instances where the underlying decision space is too large or complex for
ordinal voting, standard voting methods of social choice may be impractical.
How then can we design a mechanism - preferably decentralized, simple,
scalable, and not requiring any special knowledge of the decision space - to
reach consensus? We propose sequential deliberation as a natural solution to
this problem. In this iterative method, successive pairs of agents bargain over
the decision space using the previous decision as a disagreement alternative.
We describe the general method and analyze the quality of its outcome when the
space of preferences define a median graph. We show that sequential
deliberation finds a 1.208- approximation to the optimal social cost on such
graphs, coming very close to this value with only a small constant number of
agents sampled from the population. We also show lower bounds on simpler
classes of mechanisms to justify our design choices. We further show that
sequential deliberation is ex-post Pareto efficient and has truthful reporting
as an equilibrium of the induced extensive form game. We finally show that for
general metric spaces, the second moment of of the distribution of social cost
of the outcomes produced by sequential deliberation is also bounded
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