Normative target‐based decision making

This paper relates normative expected‐utility decision making to target‐based decision making, and introduces a new quantity, the aspiration equivalent. We show that using the aspiration equivalent as a target provides a new method for choosing between lotteries that is consistent with expected‐utility maximization. Furthermore, we show that the aspiration‐equivalent target provides a win–win situation for executive–manager delegation. This result furnishes a new link between normative decision analysis and target‐based decision making. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Issues in front‐end decision making on projects

The importance of the front‐end decision‐making phase in projects is being increasingly recognized—the need to “do the right project” is on a par with “doing the project right.” This area is underrepresented in the literature, but there are a number of key themes that run throughout, identifying key issues or difficulties during this stage. This article looks at some of these themes and includes: the need for alignment between organizational strategy and the project concept; dealing with complexity, in particular the systemicity and interrelatedness within project decisions; consideration of the ambiguity implicit in all major projects; taking into account psychological and political biases within estimation of benefits and costs; consideration of the social geography and politics within decision‐making groups; and preparation for the turbulence within the project environment, including the maintenance of strategic alignment.     

The blind power: Power-led CEO overconfidence and M&A decision making

The behavioral finance literature attributes failed M&As to CEO overconfidence. We investigate the source of CEO overconfidence that leads to failed M&As. Among various determinants of CEO overconfidence, we propose that power-led CEO overconfidence delivers undesirable consequences in corporate investments. Using CEO-level data, we find that CEO power increases the probability of a CEO being overconfident. We also show that power-led overconfident CEOs tend to complete more deals regardless of economic circumstances, do stock acquisitions, and make diversifying acquisitions, relative to non-overconfident CEOs. The results suggest that the findings of previous studies on M&As by overconfident CEOs could be driven by power-led overconfident CEOs.     

The impact of boundaryless careers on organizational decision making: an analysis from the perspective of Luhmann's theory of social systems

Research on careers has recently discovered the growing relevance of inter-organizational, boundaryless careers. The new paradigm of career studies that goes hand in hand with the concept of boundaryless careers, though, has not yet paid very much attention to the impact of new career patterns on how organizations function. To fill this gap, the paper analyses the effects of boundaryless careers on organizational decision making. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems, we elaborate how observing a (potential) employee's life in terms of career generally facilitates organizational decision making by what we call the evaluative capacity of career. Further, the paper shows in what respect employing this mode of observation is rendered more difficult by the emergence of boundaryless careers. Based on the theoretical framework developed, we finally deduce and apply a scheme of classification of possible reactions to the organizational problems caused by boundaryless careers. In sum, the paper provides a new theoretical approach to analysing different ways of how organizations can cope with the challenges of new career patterns.     

The economics of decision making in the new manufacturing firm

Decision making in a modern manufacturing firm producing a variety of products while meeting order deadlines appears at first to have little basis in the economic Theory of the Firm. It is shown that optimal budget allocations, the fractions of revenue expended on inputs, are likely to remain constant for a succession of orders for each of a family of products, thus simplifying the decision process. Well-known heuristic decision rules may not only have a sound basis in economic theory but are evidently the best way to incorporate economic logic into a stream of fast-moving decisions. The discussion is extended to an explanation of the economic value of decision making to the firm, and why this value is usually assumed to be zero in theory.     

The strategic decision making of entrepreneurs within small high innovator firms

The study examines strategic decision making among entrepreneurs from small firms engaged in early stage commercialisation. It is based on a questionnaire survey of 57 firms and the results suggest that if entrepreneurs within small innovator firms feel the innovation can be commercialised with relatively few obstacles they will tend to downgrade the importance of external advisors. Greater value is placed on the views of customers and where the entrepreneur has the power to proceed with the innovation without recourse to other stakeholders he/she is most likely to go ahead if a positive response is received from leading customers. The article expands upon these findings to outline the design, development and application of a diagnostic assessment and screening tool to assist such entrepreneurs, formulate more systematic strategies than the response to an initial customer.     

How strategic considerations influence decision making on e-HRM applications

Although numerous studies indicate that the added value of human resource management is strongest when HRM decisions are linked to the organizational strategy, practical knowledge about how strategic considerations influence decision-making processes relating to e-HRM is limited. Therefore, the purpose of this study is (1) to examine in three case studies how strategic considerations influence the decision-making process around the introduction of e-HRM applications, (2) to present propositions for further research, and (3) to offer recommendations on how to better include strategic considerations in the decision-making process. Three in-depth case studies of companies' e-HRM implementation were performed using a model on e-HRM strategy formulation (Marler, 2009). The case studies reveal that when specific business drivers are absent from the decision-making process, the main role of e-HRM becomes to provide an infrastructure with a focus on preventing dissatisfaction. In order for e-HRM to be used in a more strategic way, business and HRM should be aligned.Based on the findings, we offer research propositions for academics studying this emerging field of the interconnections between strategy, human resource management and IT systems. In addition, we offer recommendations for HR practitioners on how to optimize the match between business and HRM.     

论领导科学中的科学决策机制

在科学决策中决策机制是前提和保障,在具体的领导活动中科学决策机制还存在很多问题,需要不断的完善.     

Statistical measurement of trees’ similarity

Diagnostic theories are fundamental to Information Systems practice and are represented in trees. One way of creating diagnostic trees is by employing independent experts to construct such trees and compare them. However, good measures of similarity to compare diagnostic trees have not been identified. This paper presents an analysis of the suitability of various measures of association to determine the similarity of two diagnostic trees using bootstrap simulations. We find that three measures of association, Goodman and Kruskal’s Lambda, Cohen’s Kappa, and Goodman and Kruskal’s Gamma (J Am Stat Assoc 49(268):732–764, 1954) each behave differently depending on what is inconsistent between the two trees thus providing both measures for assessing alignment between two trees developed by independent experts as well as identifying the causes of the differences.     

Stratified network mapping decision making technique based decision support framework for R&D budget allocation in South Korea

In this research work, we proposed and developed a stratified network mapping (SNM) decision making method and used it to improve the industry–university specialization in R&D in each region selected in this study. The proposed method considers the influence of criteria on and their priority in alternatives performance evaluation process. By analyzing the influence of these criteria on decision-making, we can easily improve the performance of alternatives. The SNM gives a clear understanding of each alternatives performance efficiency level. It explores possible and inefficient states and high-level influence states in inefficient states. Narrowly using multi-criteria decision-making methods to rank alternatives does not improve the performance of alternatives. The proposed method helps rank alternatives and improve the performance level of alternatives in each state. We analyzed the R&D investment of central and local governments of South Korea. It is an attempt to invigorate and facilitate R&D collaboration using a decision support model. We analyzed industry–academia research networks and enhanced the efficiency of the research.     

The impact of online low search costs on firms' incentives to invest in quality

The growing use of the Internet has made search costs lower for consumers. We study the effect of this on the incentives for firms to invest in quality. We assume that there are firms producing high-quality products and others producing low-quality products; we also assume that the market share of the latter is higher than that of the former. Besides, we analyse the changes of both the revenue effect and the quantity effect; we show that they go in the same nonintuitive direction. In other words, when search costs decrease, the incentives to invest in quality increase.     

Economies of extremes: Lessons from venture-capital decision making

An organization's ability to exploit extreme events—such as exceptional opportunities—depends on its capacity strategy. The venture capital industry illustrates the interplay of expensive capacity and negative externalities from high utilization. The cost of adding a venture capitalist provides a strong incentive to run lean, but such leanness may make it impossible to evaluate all interesting investment opportunities. Using concepts from extreme-value theory, we analyze the trade-off between the costs and benefits arising from an increase in the number of evaluated deals. We ground our analysis in 11 years of archival data from a venture capital firm, representing 3631 deals, the decisions made, the reasons for those decisions, and the decision lead times. The firm identified 20% of arriving deals as worth evaluating during the screening process, but was not able to evaluate approximately 9% of those interesting deals due to a lack of capacity. We show that the value of increasing the number of deals evaluated increases with the tail weight of the distribution of deal values. When the right tail is light, increasing the number of deals evaluated may provide too modest a benefit to justify the cost. When, however, the right tail is heavy, the value of increasing the number of deals is likely to more than compensate for the cost of capacity. Our results provide new insight into the relative value of a chase capacity strategy that emphasizes responsiveness versus a high-utilization heuristic that emphasizes productivity. Our approach can be applied to other search operations such as personnel selection, quality circles seeking to identify root causes, and making employee capacity available for innovation.     

The impact of economic uncertainty on the decision of fertility: Evidence from Taiwan

Economic uncertainty has only recently begun to appear in research on the determinants of fertility. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how economic uncertainty affects the fertility rate in Taiwan. Official county-level panel data from 1998 to 2016 for 20 counties are utilized in DIFF-GMM and SYS-GMM models in dynamic panel regression estimation. The major finding of this study is that higher volatility of household disposable income will reduce the fertility rate. The empirical results support the proposition that economic uncertainty might be an important determinant of fertility decisions, explaining the decline in fertility in Taiwan.     

Information systems project management decision making: The influence of experience and risk propensity

Managing information systems (IS) projects is a notoriously difficult task. The project manager is a crucial player in a successful IS development project. This research examines how a project manager's prior experience and risk propensity influence his or her decision making. An experiment was conducted that showed that both experience and risk propensity have significant influence on the decisions made.