Group Decision-Making

The present work explores improvements in group decision-making. It begins with a practical example using state-of-the-art techniques for a complex, high-risk decision. We show how these techniques can reveal a better alternative. Although we created an improved decision process, decision-makers were apt to protect their own organizations instead of the project. This tendency was reduced over the course of the decision-making process but inspired the first conceptual component of this work. The first concept describes the “Cost of Conflict” that can arise in a group decision, using game theory to represent the non-cooperative approach and comparing the outcome to the cooperative approach. We demonstrate that it is possible for the group to settle on a non-Paretto Nash equilibrium. The sensitivity of the decision-maker weights is revealed which led to the second conceptual portion of this work. The second concept applies social network theory to study the influence between decision-makers in a group decision. By examining the number and strength of connections between decision-makers, we build from intrinsically derived weights to extrinsically derived weights by adding the network influences from other decision-makers. The two conceptual approaches provide a descriptive view of non-cooperative decisions where decision-makers still influence each other. These concepts suggest a prescriptive approach to achieving a higher group utility

Multi-attribute Group Decision Making of Internet Public Opinion Emergency with Interval Intuitionistic Fuzzy Number

In this paper, an emergency group decision method is presented to cope with internet public opinion emergency with interval intuitionistic fuzzy linguistic values. First, we adjust the initial weight of each emergency expert by the deviation degree between each expert\u27s decision matrix and group average decision matrix with interval intuitionistic fuzzy numbers. Then we can compute the weighted collective decision matrix of all the emergencies based on the optimal weight of emergency expert. By utilizing the interval intuitionistic fuzzy weighted arithmetic average operator one can obtain the comprehensive alarm value of each internet public opinion emergency. According to the ranking of score value and accuracy value of each emergency, the most critical internet public emergency can be easily determined to facilitate government taking related emergency operations. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed emergency group decision method

Incorporating stakeholders’ knowledge in group decision-making

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Analysis of a Group Decision-Making Process

The aim of this paper is to highlight the role of group decision and group thinking in the organization of a firm, taking as reference theoretical models and their practical applications. Organizational goals are often blocked by a pattern of thinking that develops within organizations. The article will also underline the importance of organizations' focusing on sub-goals, in order to reach, finally, to the desired result in the main goals of the organization.group decision, teamthinking, groupthinking, decision tree

Dynamic group decision making

A common theme running throughout the three chapters of this thesis is dynamic recurring group decision making. The first chapter sets up a model with endogenous status-quo (dynamic bargaining model) in which decision makers are uncertain about their own future preferences. The main focus of the chapter is on how different bargaining protocols influence equilibrium decisions. The two protocols considered are i) implicit status-quo bargaining protocol in which present period policy serves as the status-quo for the next period and ii) explicit status-quo bargaining protocol in which the current decision involves both current policy and a possibly different status-quo for the future. The main observation of the chapter is that the former bargaining protocol leads to decisions diverging from the preferences of the actors involved even in the periods in which their preferences coincide, this divergence being driven by the concerns to maintain a bargaining position for the future. The latter bargaining protocol, on the other hand, delivers decisions fully reflecting preferences of the actors involved in the periods when these coincide, but may lead to decisions re ecting only the proposer's preferences. The second chapter shows how to construct equilibria in a class of dy-namic bargaining models in which players have fixed preferences over all the dimensions of a policy space. The construction applies both to one-dimensional and multi-dimensional policy spaces and delivers equilibria with simple and intuitive structure. The chapter works out several examples to show i) the multiplicity of equilibria and ii) the non-monotonicity of the existence of the simple equilibria in the underlying model parameters. The third paper is a collaborative work with Roman Horvath and Katerina Smidkova from the Czech National Bank currently published as a CNB working paper). The chapter analyses decision making in monetary policy committees, the decision making bodies of central banks. On the empirical side, the chapter shows that voting records of monetary policy committees are informative about their own future decisions. On the theoretical side, the chapter shows that the voting records' predictive power can be generated through theoretical models used in the group decision making literature

Group Decision-Making in the Shadow of Disagreement

A model of group decision-making is studied, in which one of two alternatives must be chosen. While group members differ in their valuations of the alternatives, everybody prefers some alternative to disagreement. Our model is distinguished by three features: private information regarding valuations, varying intensities in the preference for one out-come over the other, and the option to declare neutrality in order to avoid disagreement. We uncover a variant on the “tyranny of the majority": there is always an equilibrium in which the majority is more aggressive in pushing its alternative, thus enforcing their will via both numbers and voice. However, under very general conditions an aggressive minority equilibrium inevitably makes an appearance, provided that the group is large enough. This equilibrium displays a “tyranny of the minority": it is always true that the increased aggression of the minority more than compensates for smaller number, leading to the minority outcome being implemented with larger probability than the majority alternative. In all cases the option to remain neutral ensures that the probability of disagreement is bounded away from one (as group size changes), regardless of the supermajority value needed for agreement, as long as it is not unanimity.Collective decision-making, Groups, Disagreements, Decision rules

Family Group Decision Making Utilization

In 2002, Greater Minnesota Family Services (GMFS) began providing Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) services funded by a grant and Three Counties for Kids and is still provided today in five counties. These counties are Blue Earth, Brown, Nicollet, Sibley, and Watonwan all located in Southern Minnesota. A survey was conducted to determine why the FGDM program is or is not utilized by county employees in the service area. Of county employee’s surveyed (N=25), 92% have used FGDM and 82% of those who identified their level of satisfaction (N=22) were satisfied to very satisfied with the services

Strengthening group decision making within shared governance: a case study

Shared governance is an approach to empowering nurses and other health care workers to have authority for decisions concerning their practice. Commonly, visible definers of shared governance are groups of workers known as ‘councils’ whose membership works collectively to realise a shared goal. The literature is replete with rhetoric as to the benefits of shared governance yet the evidence base concerning shared governance and especially decision-making within shared governance is scant. This paper presents a case study of group decision-making within a UK shared governance council model. The evidence which informs the case study is drawn from a doctoral action-research study to strengthen decision-making within the model. Eight key factors affecting decision-making and four supportive conditions are presented and incorporated into a conceptual model. Within the case study, presence of these factors was found to be necessary but not sufficient to enhance decision-making. Factors included having a clear issue, clear aim, fitting issue, manageable issue, size, lead person allocated, level of authority, background information, key informant/s, a mechanism for evaluation, adequately skilled members, support/guidance and sufficient/appropriate membership. Aspects of group decision-making processes are highlighted and compared with established management, shared governance and group dynamics theory

Mathematical Structures in Group Decision-Making on Resource Allocation Distributions.

Optimal decisions on the distribution of finite resources are explicitly structured by mathematical models that specify relevant variables, constraints, and objectives. Here we report analysis and evidence that implicit mathematical structures are also involved in group decision-making on resource allocation distributions under conditions of uncertainty that disallow formal optimization. A group's array of initial distribution preferences automatically sets up a geometric decision space of alternative resource distributions. Weighted averaging mechanisms of interpersonal influence reduce the heterogeneity of the group's initial preferences on a suitable distribution. A model of opinion formation based on weighted averaging predicts a distribution that is a feasible point in the group's implicit initial decision space