Designing a Participatory Process for Stakeholder Involvement in a Societal Decision

For many societal decisions, governments and public bodies are beginning to involve stakeholders and the general public to a far greater extent than previously in the decision process. Stakeholder workshops, citizen juries, focus groups, electronic forums, web-polling and many other means of consultation are being used to draw citizens into the process of deciding between different options on the management of their communities. Politicians are drawn to such instruments because greater public involvement seems to achieve greater acceptance of the ultimate decision and, arguably in more objective terms, a better decision. Many academic studies have investigated participation and wider aspects of deliberative democracy and found that the politicians’ intuition is borne out in practice. However, while there have been many studies focused on specific instruments of participation, few have compared different ones. Moreover, there seems to be a dearth of advice on how to assemble a set of different instruments into a complete participatory decision making process. This paper offers a decision modelling framework which, firstly, provides a methodology which may be used to design participatory processes and, secondly, raises a number of questions which future comparative studies will need to address.     

Planning,consciousness and conscience

Contemporary perspectives on conciousness provide us with a powerful metaphor for the corporate planning process; although organisations ultimately differ, in systems terms, from organisms. Like consciousness, planning has survival value and confers operational advantages. Whereas individuals' actions may be guided by conscience, in pursuit of ideals, corporate acts often lack these qualities. It may be that no diffuse planning process is capable of accomodating ideals and ethical standards, they are ‘beyond’ Corporate Consciousness. Therefore, the pursuit of corporate objectives will often conflict with individuals' ideals. He published various articles in the MagazineAccountancy, among others: ‘Facing the Facts’ (October 1983), ‘Motivation & Budgeting’ (March 1982) and ‘Taking “Right-Minded” Decisions’ (October 1981).     

Facilitating Collaboration with Problem Structuring Methods: A Case Study of an Inter-Organisational Construction Partnership

Despite the potential of inter-organisational collaboration to create ‘collaborative advantage’ among participant organisations, not all collaborations realise this potential due to the complexities and challenges faced by potential collaborators. To address these difficulties and increase the likelihood of collaborative success, different forms of intervention approaches for fostering inter-organisational collaboration has been advocated by collaboration researchers and practitioners. These intervention approaches all facilitate interaction and consensus formation among the participants. However their ‘added value’ is procedural rather than substantive in nature. They do not incorporate tools which can enable participants to structure the complexity of the web of factors that are implicated in their collaboration, and thus make it more manageable. This paper argues that problem structuring methods (PSMs), a family of model-based approaches to group decision and negotiation support, are a form of intervention which can provide a balanced attention to both the process and the content of inter-organisational collaboration, and reports the experience of applying a particular PSM to an inter-organisational collaborative partnership in the UK construction industry. Drawing on the rich data generated from the intervention, the paper discusses the impact of the PSM in supporting the joint appreciation activities carried out by collaborators to address their problematic situation. Implications of the experience for the research and practice of PSMs within collaborative contexts are then presented.     

The Effects of Institutional Distance and Headquarters’ Financial Performance on the Generation of Environmental Standards in Multinational Companies

This article combines institutional and resources’ arguments to show that the institutional distance between the home and the host country, and the headquarters’ financial performance have a relevant impact on the environmental standardization decision in multinational companies. Using a sample of 135 multinational companies in three different industries with headquarters and subsidiaries based in the USA, Canada, Mexico, France, and Spain, we find that a high environmental institutional distance between headquarters’ and subsidiaries’ countries deters the standardization of environmental practices. On the other hand, high-profit headquarters are willing to standardize their environmental practices, rather than taking advantage of countries with lax environmental protection to undertake more pollution-intensive activities. Finally, we show that headquarters’ financial performance also imposes a moderating effect on the relationship between environmental institutional distance between countries and environmental standardization within the multinational company.     

Negotiation processes,Evolutionary Systems Design,and NEGOTIATOR

A negotiation accord is often the result of an intense, laborious, and evolutionary negotiation process. During this process, disputing parties are confronted with goal, judgment, and outcome conflict. This article demonstrates the utility of a conflict resolution framework—Evolutionary Systems Design (ESD)—by using a Negotiation Support System. ESD seeks to guide negotiators to move their individual goals and judgments in such a way as to enhance the chance of achieving a common solution. As illustrated by the use of NEGOTIATOR, a multiattribute utility negotiation support system, we argue that computer mediation can prove to be an effective means to implement the ESD framework.     

Community-based Decision Making in Japan

An overview of participatory community-based decision systems in Japan is presented. In this disaster-prone country, effective community coping capacity has developed, largely to fill community-level needs for disaster preparation, mitigation, and response. Experience with three concepts of disaster planning and management, namely ??Kyojo?? (Neighborhood or Community Self-Reliance), ??Jijo?? (Individual or Household Self-Reliance), and ??Kojo?? (Government Assistance), is recounted and assessed. Then three structures for disaster management, Jiishu-bosai-soshiki (Self-support Disaster Reduction Association), ??Machizukuri?? (citizen-led town-creation), and ??Toshikeikaku?? (urban or city planning), are discussed. Finally, the contributions of the three papers in this special issue are related to Japanese community practices and to the broader perspective of group decision and negotiation.     

Cognitive Load in Collaboration: Convergence

Collaboration is inherent to complex participatory multi-actor and multi-agent social technical systems. Supporting collaborative problem solving is challenging, especially with the increased amount of data and information available for decision makers; they often experience information overload. Therefore, one of the key steps in problem solving is convergence; after considering many alternatives, the group converges their focus to a few for decision making. One of the key production factors in collaborative problem solving, and thus convergence is cognitive effort. Understanding cognitive load involved in convergence tasks is therefore important to the design of collaboration support. Convergence is a complex collaborative task, which is much less studied than the often preceding, divergence or brainstorming task. On the basis of an overview of convergence techniques and literature on convergence this paper presents a framework for the assessment of cognitive load during collaboration processes, and strategies to deal with cognitive load in convergence. Evaluation of the framework with experts and with participants in a convergence process provides the grounds for reflection on the use and implications of the framework.     

An Integrated Approach to Implementing ?Community Participation’ in Corporate Community Involvement: Lessons from Magadi Soda Company in Kenya

Corporate community involvement (CCI) is often regarded as means of development in developing countries. However, CCI is often criticised for patronage and insensitivity both to context and local priorities. A key concern is the extent of ‹community participation’ in corporate social decision-making. Community participation in CCI offers an opportunity for these criticisms to be addressed. This paper presents findings of research examining community participation in CCI governance undertaken by Magadi Soda Company in Kenya. We draw on socio-political governance and interaction theories to examine the institutionalisation of participatory decision-making and its impact on changing governing roles and social action in CCI over time.     

Organizational Role and Environmental Uncertainty as Influences on Ethical Work Climate in Military Units

In addition to a person’s character and training, the organization’s ethical work climate (EWC) can assess how the organization influences an individual’s ethical decision-making process by examining the individuals’ perception of “what is the right thing to do” in a particular organizational environment. Relatively little research has explored which EWCs dominate military units and the impact of organizational role and environmental uncertainty on individuals in the military and their ethical decision making. In this study, we examined the predominant EWCs among military units and found that certain organizational influences are associated with the specific EWCs. Based on these discoveries, we discuss the implications of EWC studies and the influence of organizational role and environmental uncertainty for researchers, as well as military leaders.     

Common Ground, Complex Problems and Decision Making

Organisations increasingly have to deal with complex problems. They often use multidisciplinary teams to cope with such problems where different team members have different perspectives on the problem, different individual knowledge and skills, and different approaches on how to solve the problem. In order to solve those problems, team members have to share their existing knowledge and construct new knowledge. Theory suggests that negotiation of common ground can positively affect team decision making on the solution of complex problems, by facilitating knowledge sharing across perspectives. In a small scale study with student groups, external representations supported by a specific negotiation ontology were used to facilitate negotiation by encouraging participants to make their beliefs and values explicit. Results showed that the external representations supported clarifying contributions to group members and increased group participation in discussions.     

Stakeholder Perspectives and Business Risk Perception

Stakeholder theory calls for decision makers to balance stakeholder interests, but before this can happen, management must understand how other parties view its decisions. Effective stakeholder dialogues convened to reach this understanding require management to appreciate how others perceive the risks posed by their decision. Although understanding others’ risk perception is crucial for effective communications, we do not have a clear idea of how viewing a situation from multiple stakeholder perspectives affects risk perception. Based on a technique derived from risk perception studies of health and environmental issues, an experiment with 224 business students examined how an individual’s risk perception can account for both managerial and customer perspectives. Factors described as customer participation, extent of the effect, and management input, together with the respondent’s self-assessed understanding of the decision process, help categorize overall risk perceptions and are shown to be associated with behaviors based on the decision’s riskiness. Discussion includes implications for designs of business communications, including their content and transparency, and for understanding the audience for these communications.     

Multicriteria Decision Analysis of Stream Restoration: Potential and Examples

Within stream restoration practice there has been little use of formal decision analysis methods for evaluating tradeoffs in selecting restoration sites and design alternatives. Restoration planning suffers from poorly defined objectives, confusion of objectives and means, and a lack of consideration of tradeoffs. Multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods have the potential to improve restoration decision making by quantifying non-economic objectives, communicating tradeoffs, facilitating consistent and explicit valuation, and focusing negotiation on ultimate objectives. To explore the potential usefulness of MCDA, we first review restoration practices and define the characteristics of projects that are good candidates for MCDA. We also present two case studies. The first study is a prioritization of stream reaches for restoration that illustrates how value judgments can affect such decisions. The second study addresses the proposed removal of the Ballville Dam on the Sandusky River in Ohio. An important challenge in the dam removal decision is the linking of habitat improvements to changes in species populations and ecological services that people value. The analysis shows how MCDA can assist decision making by clarifying tradeoffs, in this case by showing that the key issues are conflicts among ecological criteria—not all of which are improved by restoration.     

Negotiation support using the Decision Support System GMCR

The Graph Model for Conflict Resolution constitutes a unique and flexible approach to the representation, analysis, and understanding of strategic conflict. This methodology, as implemented in the Decision Support System GMCR, constitutes a useful tool for negotiation support. Because GMCR includes efficient algorithms for calculating the stability of states, it encourages extensive comparisons of the consequences of different models of negotiators' decision making. GMCR also facilitates modifications to the way in which the conflict is represented, encouraging sensitivity and what-if analyses. The applicability of GMCR to negotiations is discussed in general, and in the context of a specific case study in environmental conflict resolution.     

On automated e‐business negotiations: Goal,policy, strategy,and plans of decision and action

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in automated e‐business negotiations. The automation of negotiation requires a decision model to capture the negotiation knowledge of policymakers and negotiation experts so that the decision‐making process can be carried out automatically. Current research on automated e‐business negotiations has focused on defining low‐level tactics (or negotiation rules) so that automated negotiation systems can carry out automated negotiation processes. These low‐level tactics are usually defined from a technical perspective, not from a business perspective. There is a gap between high‐level business negotiation goals and low‐level tactics. In this article, we distinguish the concepts of negotiation context, negotiation goals, negotiation strategy, and negotiation tactics and introduce a formal decision model to show the relations among these concepts. We show how high‐level negotiation goals can be formally mapped to low‐level tactics that can be used to affect the behavior of a negotiation system during the negotiation process. In business, a business organization faces different negotiation situations (or contexts) and determines different sets of goals for different negotiation contexts. In our decision model, a business policymaker sets negotiation goals from different perspectives, which are called goal dimensions. A negotiation policy is a functional mapping from a negotiation context to some quantitative measures (or goal values) for the goal dimensions to express how competitive the policymaker wants to reach that set of goals. A negotiation expert who has the experience and expertise to conduct negotiations would define the negotiation strategies needed for reaching the negotiation goals. Formally, a negotiation strategy is a functional mapping from a set of goal values to a set of decision‐action rules that implement negotiation tactics. The selected decision‐action rules can then be used to control the execution of an automated negotiation system, which conducts a negotiation on behalf of a business organization.     

Marketing in Chinese Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs): The State of the Art in a Chinese Socialist Economy

This paper adopts the context-embedded approach to examine the marketing practices of 307 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the People’’s Republic of China by comparing the survey findings with that of Hong Kong and Guangdong SMEs. Chinese SMEs focus on regional markets to avoid direct competition with Hong Kong SMEs in the international markets and also their Guangdong counterparts in the turbulent nationwide market. To market their own brands, Chinese SMEs have to analyze the market and use superior marketing strategies in the competitive markets. Chinese SMEs do not attain the superior competitive positions as that of their Guangdong counterparts, but they use customer satisfaction surveys and claims investigation to help develop excellence in product performance. Also, Chinese SMEs have to provide value-added products and services and also a well-rounded marketing competitive strategy to gain market shares. The traditional state-owned enterprise structure in China facilitates the development of hierarchical organizational structure and joint decision making process. Thus, care should be taken in assuming that marketing tools and techniques are equally applicable across all places, even in similar cultural contexts. Socio-cultural influences and mediating environmental factors should be considered when attempting to understand the marketing practices of Chinese small firms, specifically when China is in transition to a socialist market economy.     

团队内冲突对团队决策质量和满意度影响的实证研究

Conflict is a pivotal variable influencing team decision performance. This article reviewed literature on intragroup conflict and studied how different types of conflicts affect perceived team decision quality and satisfaction. We conducted a survey on 156 managers and found that the task-relationship conflict dimensions are also valid in the Chinese context. We also found that both task conflict and relationship conflict are negatively related to team members’ decision satisfaction. Relationship conflict acts as a mediator between task conflict and decision satisfaction. __________ Translated from Guanli pinglun 管理评论 (Management Review), 2007, 19(7): 10–15     

Anger in social conflict: Cross-situational comparisons and suggestions for the future

This paper reviews research on the role of anger in conflict. We distinguish between intrapersonal and interpersonal effects of anger, the former referring to the impact of parties’ feelings of anger on their own behavior and the latter referring to the impact of one parties’ anger on the other’s behavior. We further compare the effects of anger across a variety of conflict settings, including negotiation, ultimatum bargaining, prisoner’s dilemma, resource dilemma, and coalition formation. At the intrapersonal level, anger is associated with competition in all conflict settings. In contrast, the interpersonal effects of anger differ across situations, with anger sometimes eliciting cooperation, sometimes eliciting competition, and sometimes having no effect. Based on the research reviewed, we conclude that the interpersonal effects of anger in conflict are determined by the level of interdependence of the parties, their information processing tendencies, and the justifiability of the anger expressions. Preparation of this paper was facilitated by a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO 451–05–010) awarded to Gerben A. Van Kleef.     

Determinants of R&D collaboration of service firms

This article examines the determinants of R&D collaboration of service firms. Different from manufacturing firms, we expect that types of innovation, public financing, innovation protection, purchase of external R&D, firm’s absorptive capacity, spillovers, and certain innovation barriers determine the firm’s decision to collaborate in R&D. Results indicate that firms that undertake R&D collaboration tend to undertake process innovation, receive public funding, can protect their innovations, and typically subcontract the development of their technologies. The article provides implications for theory and practice.     

Accessibility of Computer-based Simulation Models in Inherently Conflict-Laden Negotiations

The use of computer-based simulation models has a long history in areas such as environmental planning and policy-making, and particularly in water management. Policy making in these areas is often characterized by inherent conflict among diverse stakeholders with divergent interests. Although simulation models have been shown to be helpful for such problems, they are typically under the control of a technical analyst or governmental agency and are not available to negotiators in real time. Recent trends in computer technology and user expectations raise the possibility of real-time, user-controlled models for supporting negotiation. But is such accessibility likely to be helpful? This study used a "compressed" longitudinal experiment to investigate the impacts of different scenarios of accessibility of computer-based simulation models. The task was based on a real-life problem in Colorado River water management. Results revealed no significant differences among conditions for either solution quality or satisfaction. These results suggest that the common notion of "more is better" may be inappropriate, and resources for improving computer support of negotiation might best be focused elsewhere.     

Negotiators’ Effectiveness with Mixed Agendas: An Empirical Exploration of Tasks,Decisions and Performance Criteria

This article analyzes the performance of 1,060 individuals in dyadic, mixed-agenda negotiations in order to further understanding of individual negotiators’ effectiveness and test the applicability of common negotiation advice. To evaluate performance, both established and new measures were employed. In general, individuals were not effective, although there was wide variation that included highly effective negotiators. In striking contrast to previous research, high-performing individuals’ achievements were not significantly related to maximum joint value creation or to maximum logrolling. Most of the variation in benchmarked (best-practices) effectiveness and in partner-compared effectiveness was explained by individuals’ decisions on three types of agenda items: pure conflict, reverse priorities, and no-conflict. Each had a significant effect (with one exception), but decisions on pure conflict influenced individual effectiveness much more than decisions on either of the other two. Additional results include the extent to which negotiators tended to compromise, logroll, agree on common values, and modify their decisions across items within an item type. Among other implications, these findings argue for richer, more nuanced treatment of individual effectiveness and for advice that is attentive to the structural features of particular negotiations.