The effects of leadership involvement and the value of the task on subordinates' performance / 275

Includes bibliographical references

THE ROLE OF INTERDEPENDENCE IN THE MICRO-FOUNDATIONS OF ORGANIZATION DESIGN: TASK, GOAL, AND KNOWLEDGE INTERDEPENDENCE

Interdependence is a core concept in organization design, yet one that has remained consistently understudied. Current notions of interdependence remain rooted in seminal works, produced at a time when managers’ near-perfect understanding of the task at hand drove the organization design process. In this context, task interdependence was rightly assumed to be exogenously determined by characteristics of the work and the technology. We no longer live in that world, yet our view of interdependence has remained exceedingly task-centric and our treatment of interdependence overly deterministic. As organizations face increasingly unpredictable workstreams and workers co-design the organization alongside managers, our field requires a more comprehensive toolbox that incorporates aspects of agent-based interdependence. In this paper, we synthesize research in organization design, organizational behavior, and other related literatures to examine three types of interdependence that characterize organizations’ workflows: task, goal, and knowledge interdependence. We offer clear definitions for each construct, analyze how each arises endogenously in the design process, explore their interrelations, and pose questions to guide future research

Reciprocity as a foundation of financial economics

This paper argues that the subsistence of the fundamental theorem of contemporary financial mathematics is the ethical concept ‘reciprocity’. The argument is based on identifying an equivalence between the contemporary, and ostensibly ‘value neutral’, Fundamental Theory of Asset Pricing with theories of mathematical probability that emerged in the seventeenth century in the context of the ethical assessment of commercial contracts in a framework of Aristotelian ethics. This observation, the main claim of the paper, is justified on the basis of results from the Ultimatum Game and is analysed within a framework of Pragmatic philosophy. The analysis leads to the explanatory hypothesis that markets are centres of communicative action with reciprocity as a rule of discourse. The purpose of the paper is to reorientate financial economics to emphasise the objectives of cooperation and social cohesion and to this end, we offer specific policy advice

Action Being Character: A Promising Perspective on the Solution Concept of Game Theory

The inconsistency of predictions from solution concepts of conventional game theory with experimental observations is an enduring question. These solution concepts are based on the canonical rationality assumption that people are exclusively self-regarding utility maximizers. In this article, we think this assumption is problematic and, instead, assume that rational economic agents act as if they were maximizing their implicit utilities, which turns out to be a natural extension of the canonical rationality assumption. Implicit utility is defined by a player's character to reflect his personal weighting between cooperative, individualistic, and competitive social value orientations. The player who actually faces an implicit game chooses his strategy based on the common belief about the character distribution for a general player and the self-estimation of his own character, and he is not concerned about which strategies other players will choose and will never feel regret about his decision. It is shown by solving five paradigmatic games, the Dictator game, the Ultimatum game, the Prisoner's Dilemma game, the Public Goods game, and the Battle of the Sexes game, that the framework of implicit game and its corresponding solution concept, implicit equilibrium, based on this alternative assumption have potential for better explaining people's actual behaviors in social decision making situations

Rationality versus reality: the challenges of evidence-based decision making for health policy makers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Current healthcare systems have extended the evidence-based medicine (EBM) approach to health policy and delivery decisions, such as access-to-care, healthcare funding and health program continuance, through attempts to integrate valid and reliable evidence into the decision making process. These policy decisions have major impacts on society and have high personal and financial costs associated with those decisions. Decision models such as these function under a shared assumption of rational choice and utility maximization in the decision-making process.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>We contend that health policy decision makers are generally unable to attain the basic goals of evidence-based decision making (EBDM) and evidence-based policy making (EBPM) because humans make decisions with their naturally limited, faulty, and biased decision-making processes. A cognitive information processing framework is presented to support this argument, and subtle cognitive processing mechanisms are introduced to support the focal thesis: health policy makers' decisions are influenced by the subjective manner in which they individually process decision-relevant information rather than on the objective merits of the evidence alone. As such, subsequent health policy decisions do not necessarily achieve the goals of evidence-based policy making, such as maximizing health outcomes for society based on valid and reliable research evidence.</p> <p>Summary</p> <p>In this era of increasing adoption of evidence-based healthcare models, the rational choice, utility maximizing assumptions in EBDM and EBPM, must be critically evaluated to ensure effective and high-quality health policy decisions. The cognitive information processing framework presented here will aid health policy decision makers by identifying how their decisions might be subtly influenced by non-rational factors. In this paper, we identify some of the biases and potential intervention points and provide some initial suggestions about how the EBDM/EBPM process can be improved.</p

Knowledge Exchange Processes in Multicultural Teams: Linking Organizational Diversity Climates to Teams’ Effectiveness

We developed an evidence-based model illuminating team knowledge exchange processes as a key link between organizational diversity climate and the effectiveness of multicultural teams (MCTs). Our analysis is based on 143 in-depth interviews and extensive observations of team interactions that occurred in 48 teams from 11 companies. Our findings revealed that teams that oscillated between assertive and cooperative knowledge exchange processes were more effective. We also found such dual processes were more prevalent in organizations that had an engagement-focused diversity climate characterized by utilization of diversity to inform and enhance work processes based on the assumption that cultural differences give rise to different knowledge, insights, and alternative views. Based on our findings we developed specific propositions about optimizing MCT knowledge-exchange processes to guide future research and practice