Unbounded Rationality

The paper discusses bounded and unbounded rationality in purposeful complex adaptive systems (PCAS) modeled by the Evolutionary Systems Design (ESD) framework. Due to Herbert Simon, bounded rationality is the rationality of cognition. Unbounded rationality is the generalized rationality of connectedness represented mathematically, of spirituality, and of right decision/negotiation. Operational procedures for defining/solving and validating a problem in group decision and negotiation under unbounded rationality are discussed. With human PCAS as a focus, the paper more generally considers rationality in multiagent systems with natural and/or artificial agents.     

Consciousness, Spirituality and Right Decision/Negotiation in Purposeful Complex Adaptive Systems

Both cybernetic and self-organizing, purposeful complex adaptive systems (PCAS) express purpose by solving problems defined by choosing and delivering values to participants as operational goals through decision making. Individuals, groups, organizations, and economies are PCAS. Here we focus on indviduals and groups. Evolutionary Systems Design (ESD) is a universal (culture independent) general problem solving, formal modeling/design framework for PCAS that can be computer implemented in same time/same place or telework modes. Formally, in ESD sets of elements and their relations modeling a PCAS evolve through cybernetics/self organization. Spirituality and the concept of right decision/negotiation in PCAS are discussed in relation to consciousness. Rightness comes from spirituality, i.e., consciousness experiencing oneness. Oneness is integrally bound with love; hence the term oneness/love. Through right decision/negotiation PCAS try to realize their ultimate purpose to live Two (the relative, the process of all there is) as One (the absolute, all there is). Oneness/love, connectedness to One, promotes problem solving and negotiation - expressed formally in the ESD problem representation - that is at the same time right. Simply put, right problem solving requires oneness/love and delivers oneness/love. Computer and receiver modes of consciousness are discussed in relation to oneness/love and its absence experienced as separateness/fear. Ways to transit from the latter to the former are considered. P.L. Yu's Habitual Domain (HD) framework is introduced and discussed in relation to ESD. Evolutionary heuristics for evolution of an ESD right problem representation through cybernetics/self-organization are presented based on combined HD and ESD concepts. Then operational procedures for defining and validating a right problem for an individual or group and associated right decision/negotiation outcome are considered. Thus, the work contributes to procedural rationality - how decisions should be or are made - in purposeful complex adaptive systems. The paper suggests that for humans to live fully (awake) is to live in our love-based spirituality, in the moment, consciousness experiencing oneness/love at the edge of chaos, challenged in our purpose to live Two as One by spiritual or right decision/negotiation through cybernetics/self-organization, i.e., problem solving under oneness. Artificial agents in PCAS may participate in right decision/negotiation. They may in principle have consciousness but the nature of the subjective experience is unclear.     

Connectedness Problem Solving and Negotiation

Difficult polarizing problems/conflicts are pervasive in the United States and the world. Welcome to spiritual rationality/connectedness problem solving and negotiation involving spirituality and rationality, and emphasizing connectedness in problem solving. In particular, we develop CPSN-ESD—Connectedness Problem Solving and Negotiation (CPSN) through Evolutionary Systems Design (ESD)—discussing spiritual rationality/connectedness and highlighting connectedness with One and with each other as values, among others, in problem solving. In CPSN-ESD, CPSN is effected through ESD, a game-theory based, general formal systems- spirituality modeling/design framework for individual and multiagent (group) problem solving and negotiation implemented by computer technology. Problem solving is represented by an evolving problem system of purposes and their relations from the lowest-level action to the highest purpose, ultimate common ground—spirituality, connectedness with One (or a surrogate, as discussed). For an agent, an evolved problem system satisfying spiritual rationality identifies right action (a solution) producing spirituality, connectedness with One (or a surrogate). A negotiation agreement requires multiagent agreement on the action to be taken. Agents may be natural or artificial. The paper focuses mostly on human agents with ideas being applicable to other natural and artificial (computer) agents with lesser (or greater) capabilities than humans according to their built-in capabilities. Present-to-future CSPN-ESD work includes furthering support of human agents; designing spiritual agents; designing multiagent systems for connectedness capitalism; developing connectedness democracy; further research and applications on intercultural and international negotiation; work on the world connected.     

中小企业融资困境解析--一个产权保护的视角

基于对中小企业融资问题既有研究的简要回顾 ,本文通过信贷博弈分析从产权保护的视角对该问题进行了讨论 ,认为在产权保护尚待完善的情况下 ,企图建立金融中介与中小企业的交易存在困境 ,而有关企业信用的问题在很大程度上即为此困境的表现形式。结合对西部中小企业融资问题的简要讨论和政策建议 ,本文最后认为在中小企业融资问题的解决进路中 ,国家与地方政府的改革、稳定与沟通角色至关重要。     

Remarks on Lydenberg’s “Reason,Rationality and Fiduciary Duty”

In his 2014 paper entitled “Reason, Rationality and Fiduciary Duty”, Lydenberg ventures into the field of the moral and political philosophy dealing with distributive justice in search of fresh perspectives on fiduciary duty. Simply by doing this, Lydenberg makes the very important contribution of drawing a little more attention to the potential that this huge field of study might have in relation to understanding socially responsible investment. There are however difficulties with Lydenberg’s paper. I describe three in particular that I believe warrant critical attention. The first emerges out of Lydenberg’s treatment of the central concepts of reasonableness and rationality. The second lies in his apparent suggestion that at some earlier time fiduciary duty was somehow more generally other-considering than it is today. And finally, the third is associated with the place that impartiality occupies in Lydenberg’s storyline, and the implications of this in terms of his call for a reconciliation between reasonableness and rationality. This critical scrutiny clarifies theoretical and practical implications of the transition Lydenberg is suggesting. In doing this, it makes the realization that what Lydenberg is attempting is more than likely nothing short of resolving “The fundamental problem of ethics and politics” (Russell, Unpopular essays, Routledge, London, p. 3, 2009/1950) in the specific context of fiduciary action.     

宅基地使用权流转限制与政府职能定位

我国法律、法规及其他有关规定对宅基地使用权的身份、用途和流转作了严格限定。在正当性考量方面,基于耕地保护、粮食安全和社会秩序稳定为内容的生存利益而限制宅基地使用权流转具有合理性;基于土地的社会保障功能而限制流转就不具有正当性。因此,宅基地使用权流转的放松管制是必要的,政府的职能也应从严格限制中的刚性管控,向以自愿、有偿条件下的推进实现农村"公共利益"的方向转变。     

The Connectedness Decision Paradigm: Group Decision, Negotiation and Leadership in World Problems

We discuss connectedness, a dynamic unity relation experience. The Connectedness Decision Paradigm (CDP) is a formal, general systems-spirituality framework, technology-supported, for group decision and negotiation (GDN) and leadership in making “right” decisions. A right problem/solution is validated by a spiritual rationality validation test involving connectedness. A participant (agent) may experience connectedness with purposes (intended results). Purposes for which there is reciprocated (shared) purpose connectedness across agents constitute common ground for these agents. A basic idea is to identify and expand such common ground. Even in difficult problem solving, as with polarization, where there seems to be little or no common ground, a priori there is always the ultimate purpose common ground of connectedness with One (spirituality) from which other common ground as connectedness with the “other” can arise. Common ground can lead to additional common ground and to an agreed problem solution—itself constituting common ground—that can be tested for rightness. Our focus here is on human agents considered as spiritual purposeful complex adaptive systems in multiagent environments. The ideas are applicable to other agents with lesser or greater capabilities than humans according to their capabilities. Expanding earlier work, this commentary on CDP is also based on GDN 2012, 2013 meeting remarks by the author, as well as on a lecture, “Hope on the Edge of Chaos: The New Connectedness Paradigm in World Affairs”, Hamilton Hall, Salem, Massachusetts, February 2012. In presenting CDP, this commentary is also a call for problem solving frameworks for GDN and leadership, and solutions to world problems.     

From Management Systems to Corporate Social Responsibility

At the start of the 21st century, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) seems to have great potential for innovating business practices with a positive impact on People, Planet and Profit. In this article the differences between the management systems approach of the nineties, and Corporate Social Responsibility are analysed.An analysis is structured around three business principles that are relevant for CSR and management systems: (1) doing things right the first time, (2) doing the right things, and (3) continuous improvement and innovation. Basically CSR is focussing on the second principle, and management systems focus on the first. However, CSR is very likely to build on the management systems as well.From a CSR point of view, the existing generation of management systems with their focus on rational control (= doing things right) can only be of limited use in the development of CSR. However, the preventive rationalities of management systems are important. Values and the principle doing the right things is extremely relevant for CSR. This goes far beyond the present generation of ISO type management systems; opportunities stem from building on TQM approaches like the EFQM Business Excellence model. Continuous improvement and innovation is a permanent challenge underlying the two other business principles, and requires both individual and organisational learning processes. In the present generation of management systems, continuous improvement mainly addresses rational prevention, barely the value aspects of business.For the further development and implementation of CSR, each of the three business management principles are vital. There is a need for a new generation of management systems that addresses the values at stake in strategic decision-making, both at company level and in the behaviour of individuals, while the rationalities of prevention and anticipation are still relevant. In both directions more emphasis for continuous learning and innovation will be needed.CSR is likely to trigger the development of management systems in the directions mentioned. This will support companies to be credible and transparent in improving the performance with respect to people, planet and profit.     

产权市场发展与资本市场建设

本文认为,产权市场是中国特色的资本市场,市场环境还不够理想,存在一些问题:一是国有产权交易的时候,产权不够清晰;二是中国企业信用与个人诚信不能令人满意;三是中介机构素质不高;四是职业经理人阶层尚未形成;五是缺乏金融支持;六是法制环境不完善等。文章提出,中国产权市场基本设计思路是在现有环境下如何能够最大限度地既保证国有产权的有效流转又防止国有资产的流失,这就必须遵循公开和竞争的基本原则,努力建设一个多层次的资本市场。     

知识产权价值管理问题的研究

知识产权问题是当前各国科技政策与经济政策界关注的热点,而对知识产权的价值管理则是企业界面临的重要问题,为解决此问题,从知识产权的核算与管理对提高企业竞争力的影响出发,提出知识产权会计的研究和建设问题。通过构建知识产权会计的特殊核算系统、方法体系和会计分析评价系统,可以满足企业特殊的经营管理需要。     

WTO与我国民营企业知识产权制度的建立与完善

我国一些地方政府结合本地区的实际情况和经济发展的现状,制定了一些与国家知识产权法律、法规相配套的地方性法规和政策,加强了知识产权的执法工作,并已经取得了一定的积极效果。但是,地方政府在民营企业知识产权制度建设方面却明显不力,存在很多问题,亟待改善。结合广东省企业知识产权制度的现状,根据WTO规则的要求,寻找建立和完善我国地方民营企业知识产权制度的途径。     

Retailer Marketing Communications in the Digital Age: Getting the Right Message to the Right Shopper at the Right Time

The evolving retail landscape in the digital age has resulted in opportunities and novel capabilities for retailers. This paper identifies four key challenges facing retailers based on insights from practitioners and academics using the customer journey framework as a guide. It then considers evidence from both practice and theory on how contemporary retailers might best innovate in the face of these challenges, to get “the right message to the right shopper at the right time.” Historically, retail was largely constrained to focus on individual touchpoints as manufacturers drove the majority of communication decisions. More recently, with the ability of e-commerce to capture the shopper decision journey more comprehensively, retailers are better able to understand what the right message would be as well as where, when, and how to deliver it to reach the most responsive shoppers to achieve the retailer’s strategic objectives in each phase of the journey. It is within this context that this paper considers the following key challenges: 1) When is the right time to communicate with a given shopper?, 2) What is the right way to communicate with a given shopper?, 3) What is the right way to leverage in-store collateral?, and 4) How do we cultivate the right long-term relationship with a shopper?     

Doing well by doing good: A quantitative investigation of the litter effect

Corporate social responsibility can prove challenging for traditional businesses as a profit-making agenda may well be in conflict with the wishes and expectations of other stakeholders. Nevertheless, if organizations can align the incentive of better business performance with beneficial outcomes on a wider social and/or environmental level, so called doing well by doing good, conflict ceases between the two aims. This paper investigates a particular global problem within the context of the fast-food industry. Discarded fast-food packaging is the fastest growing type of litter in many Western countries. The paper establishes, by using a quasi-experimental method (n = 1000), that multiple levels of a brand's evaluation are negatively affected when that brand's packaging is seen as litter. This paper also quantifies the financial impact of the litter effect on a company.     

股改对中国证券市场有效性影响的实证分析

文章以2005年4月至2007年3月,沪深300指数所包含的股票为样本股,采用股价非同步指标对中国证券市场股价信息含量进行实证研究.结果表明,股权分置改革以后的证券市场中所包含的公司信息含量呈上升趋势,股权分置改革对市场效率的提高产生了积极影响.     

ESD: A Formal Consciousness Model for International Negotiation

We develop the Evolutionary Systems Design (ESD) formal consciousness model for international negotiation extending the usual cognitive rationality of formal models to right rationality validated subjectively by cognition, affection, conation, holistically, and spiritually. Two subjective validation tests for right rationality are described. The purpose is to attain right negotiation agreements in international negotiation. Practice and computer implementation are discussed and applications presented. Though the ESD general formal mathematical model is an evolving difference game, in applying it to specific problems mathematical symbols are not normally used, relations between generally familiar sets of elements being expressed by tables (matrices). We believe that ESD can help close the gap between formal modeling and practice of international negotiation.     

“公共地悲剧”的博弈分析

博弈中往往会出现个人理性和集体理性的矛盾,使得公共资源产权界定不清,社会资源不能得到很好的利用。必须对“公共地悲剧”进行博弈分析,运用博弈理论中的Nash均衡和反应函数讨论公共资源低效率配置的原因和造成的后果,这样才能说明环境资源保护的社会意义。     

Managing the human resource in Indian SMEs: The role of indigenous realities

This paper discusses how issues of people management are addressed in Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It also highlights the indigenous approaches to human resource management (HRM) that have surfaced in the Indian SME context. The research formulation has been built on the mapping of people-management practices in two SME case studies, one of which is also a family-based organization. The analysis shows that indigenous realities in HRM in Indian SMEs relate mainly to the provision of financial, emotional and social support to the workforce; employee involvement (EI) practices; recruitment; skill development; managing employee relations; and managing vis-à-vis labor law framework. The paper argues that in the sphere of people management in SMEs, the willingness to innovate and formalize the HR systems is constrained by a kind of bounded rationality, i.e., the owners of SMEs mostly believe that they are already doing what is humanly possible in this regard. The analysis has an important message for concerned practitioners—in order to realize their full potential and to progress towards fulfilling their vision; SMEs eventually have to intertwine indigenization and formalization for their people management approaches.     

Fast and frugal crisis management: An analysis of rule-based judgment and choice during water contamination events

Drawing on the fast and frugal research programme, this paper describes a retrospective field study of decision making during water contamination events. It characterises three heuristics employed in real-world decision making. The credibility heuristic discriminates between signals from targets and noise from distracters on the basis of the perceived trustworthiness of the message conveyor. With the precedent heuristic, the response to an unfolding event is determined by searching for past analogues (i.e. precedents) and, if found, treating the current event in the same fashion. By contrast, the facts-trump-speculation heuristic discriminates between conflicting explanations or claims according to how they rank on pre-determined hierarchies of evidence (orders of cue validities), neglecting utilities and avoiding the aggregation of competing lines of evidence. Rather than cataloguing the biases that these heuristics lead to, this paper focuses on the structural factors which shape each heuristic's ecological rationality. In doing so, the study develops ideas about how particular infrastructure systems and forms of social organisation structure the validity of cues, the accessibility of information, and the application of particular heuristics. The study also introduces the concept of safeguards to rule-based reasoning, and the idea that heuristics can be used to rationalize decisions, and deployed strategically to persuade other social actors. The over-arching claim is that the fast and frugal programme provides a powerful framework for analysing judgment and choice in organisations, and offers a bridge between psychological and political models of organisational behaviour.     

要素禀赋差异与企业产权博弈

企业契约的参与要素包括财务资本与智力资本,不同要素的禀赋特征决定了要素所有权主体在企业内部的谈判能力,企业的实质是要素所有者之间的一种递进谈判机制与过程。通过构建基于要素禀赋特征的企业产权博弈矩阵,发现不同社会经济状态下的要素禀赋特征内生决定了企业的产权安排方式。因此,伴随着知识经济发展,智力资本拥有企业产权是社会经济发展的必然。