Consistency in MCGDM Problems with Intuitionistic Fuzzy Preference Relations Based on an Exponential Score Function

This paper investigates an approach for multiple criteria decision making problems with intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations (IFPRs). An exponential score function for intuitionistic fuzzy numbers is developed. Its novelty is that it can convert an IFPR into a multiplicative preference relation. Then, the exponential score preference relation is introduced and its associated optimal transfer matrix is proposed. The optimal transfer matrix can guarantee the consistency via the additive transitivity property. Furthermore, an optimal model for aggregating group IFPRs to reach consistency is proposed. Finally, a group decision making approach and a multi-criteria decision making approach with IFPRs are presented.     

Prioritization and Aggregation of Intuitionistic Preference Relations: A Multiplicative-Transitivity-Based Transformation from Intuitionistic Judgment Data to Priority Weights

This article proposes a goal programming framework for deriving intuitionistic fuzzy weights from intuitionistic preference relations (IPRs). A new multiplicative transitivity is put forward to define consistent IPRs. By analyzing the relationship between intuitionistic fuzzy weights and multiplicative consistency, a transformation formula is introduced to convert normalized intuitionistic fuzzy weights into multiplicative consistent IPRs. By minimizing the absolute deviation between the original judgment and the converted multiplicative consistent IPR, two linear goal programming models are developed to obtain intuitionistic fuzzy weights from IPRs for both individual and group decisions. In the context of multicriteria decision making with a hierarchical structure, a linear program is established to obtain a unified criterion weight vector, which is then used to aggregate local intuitionistic fuzzy weights into global priority weights for final alternative ranking. Two numerical examples are furnished to show the validity and applicability of the proposed models.     

公共服务资源配置中的个人偏好与社会正义——基于实证社会选择方法的问卷实验

以异质化公共服务领域的资源配置为背景,我们引入不同的假想式情境来考察受试者的集体选择的变化.从而,我们使用实证社会选择方法分析了传统上只能利用思想实验讨论的内容.我们发现:在贫富身份确定的“基准”情境下,无论是高禀赋者还是低禀赋者都倾向选择有利于自己的方案;在“无知之幕”和“中立观察者”的情境下,多数受试者会选择较为温和的再分配方案;受试者的选择会受到“效率”因素的影响,“应得”因素的效果则不明显;任一情境下观察到的实际选择都与理论预期不完全相符;某些个体特征因素会对受试者的选择产生影响.通过我们的实验可以得出的重要政策启示是:人们在做出选择时会努力平衡正义原则和效率标准,此为推动基本公共服务均等化的关键约束.     

A Voting Mechanism Designed for Talent Shows in Mass Media: Weighted Preference of Group Decision Makers in Social Networks Using Fuzzy Measures and Choquet Integral

As the development of social networks tends to shape people’s view about choices, decision making theories are challenged by numerous unprecedented difficulties, from both the theories and practice. One hot topic is how to design a voting mechanism for talent shows in mass media that not only attracts public attention but also reflects an objective and fair principle. Weighted voting, where the voting power of a representative is proportional to the population in his or her district, has been widely adopted in legislative selections and talent show competitions. However, weighted voting system may cause disenfranchisement of some representatives and reduce the entertainment and interest of talent shows because of the ignorance of complex interactions among the representatives. In this paper, possible interactions among representatives are analyzed by investigating the associated social networks and subsequently some fuzzy measures are utilized to quantify these interactions. Specifically, the weights determination model is adopted in this situation for defining fuzzy measures to avoid the disenfranchisement, and a multiple-group hierarchy decision model is developed to solve social network group decision making problems where the Choquet integral is employed to reduce the impact from synergy and redundancy between representatives. Moreover, a voting mechanism for talent shows in mass media is provided. Finally, an illustrative example, and a close look at the current algorithmic issues and future trends from different angles are provided.

     

政府“偏爱”与城市发展:以中国为例

本文着重研究政府“偏爱”行为对城市发展的影响,而在中国,政府对城市“偏爱”的行为主要表现在城市之间行政等级的差异上.对中国地级以上城市的实证研究结果表明:在控制影响城市发展其他因素的情况下,行政等级越高,城市人口增长速度就越快、城市达到人口规模门槛值的时间就越早,表明政府可以通过赋予某一城市行政等级优势从而促进该城市的发展.本文的研究不仅有助于理解改革开放以来中国城市化的“政府主导+市场推动”模式和历史因素、生态环境对城市发展的积极作用,也提出了中国政府在新一轮城市化进程中的“角色定位”,尽管政府在推动落后地区城市发展方面依然具有关键性作用,但是参与方式应在充分发挥市场机制的情况下,由“政府主导”转变为“政府引导”,避免由于政府的“偏爱”而导致城市之间发展地位的不均等,最终影响中国城市总体发展的效率.     

How Do Ordinary Japanese Reach Consensus in Group Decision Making?: Identifying and Analyzing “Naïve Negotiation”

The purpose of this study is to investigate ways in which ordinary Japanese people negotiate in a multi-party meeting. We initially gave such a way of negotiation the tentative name of “naïve negotiation”. The analysis of the conversational data reveals three structural features of naïve negotiation: (1) at the utterance level, the participants tend to claim their opinions without providing any overt grounds, (2) at the local consensus-building level, they tend to jump to conclusions without the full examination of proposed hypotheses, (3) at the final consensus-making level, there tends to be disjunctions between discussion units. Although these features are not necessarily seen as irrational or illogical, a naïve-negotiation style can still be a trouble-source in achieving successful consensus-making. This leads us to emphasize the necessity of developing a support system for the discussants.     

Problems and Issues with the Domain Name System: A Review of Fortune 100 Companies

ABSTRACT

Domain names are a very important component of the Internet. The regulations and standards governing the registration of domain names have evolved over the past decade. Although various laws have been passed to protect businesses and organizations, this paper examines the effectiveness of such actions. A sample of Fortune 100 companies was examined to determine who had ownership of the top-level domain (.com, .net, .org, .biz) associated with their corporate second-level domain (e.g., walmart, intel). A summary and discussion of the findings are presented.     

Managing Service Expectations in Online Markets: A Signaling Theory of E-tailer Pricing and Empirical Tests

Expectations play a significant role in determining customer perceptions and satisfaction. Accordingly, retailers seek to manage customers’ service expectations. However, the tangible signals of service quality that are available to brick-and-mortar retailers (such as location, store appearance, and salespersons’ behavior) may not be available in online markets. Using a signaling model, we obtain conditions when Internet retailers (e-tailers) use price to manage their customers’ service expectations. In contrast to extant theory, we find that it is possible for both low and high service e-tailers to use price in signaling their service levels. Further, we develop an appropriate deductive test of our theory based on price-ending patterns as an artifact of the signaling process. Based on this test, we find evidence that e-tailers indeed manage service expectations using price. Interestingly, we also find preliminary evidence that suggests customers implicitly associate price-ending patterns with a retailer's expected service level. We discuss several other implications of our findings for researchers and managers.     

Trust and Group Efficiency in Multinational Virtual Team Collaboration: A Longitudinal Study

Trust plays a central role in team collaboration, especially in multinational virtual teams. However, our understanding of how different types of trust interact to influence group work efficiency in this context is still limited. This study investigates the development of two types of trust and group efficiency over time in the multinational virtual team context. Three analysis phases were conducted in this research: phase 1 included a qualitative analysis of an online interview with 120 respondents in multinational virtual team collaborations over 5 weeks, phase 2 comprised a general analysis of the trust and group efficiency development with the same respondents, and phase 3 included a quantitative analysis of the interaction effects of trust on group efficiency. The results provide insights into the antecedents of group efficiency and reveal the trend of trust and group efficiency development over time. The authors also investigate trust and group efficiency from the deconstructed and decomposed perspectives. This study contributes to current research by providing evidence on the development of trust and group efficiency and by investigating the interaction effects of trust in the multinational virtual team collaboration context.

     

Managing Innovation in SMEs: A Multiple Case Analysis of the Adoption and Implementation of Product and Process Design Technologies

This work offers the results of a study which describes the experiences of twenty-six small manufacturing firms, operating in the machine tool industry in Italy, which have recently adopted and implemented advanced production technologies. A multiple case study approach was used to explore the reasons for, and obstacles to adopting the new technology, to identify key critical factors in implementation management, and to describe the characteristics of an environment that nurtures innovation. Perceived advantages, internal constraints and external context were identified as the main variables that could explain the CAD-CAM adoption and implementation practices of these small firms. Based on an analytical framework comprising 26 factors regrouped into the three mentioned variables, three groups of firms, characterized by different technology management profiles are identified. However, the system of relationships that characterizes the customer-buyer-supplier relation and the network of "real" services offered to the firm appeared two critical factors.     

Group actions and the law: A case study of Social Action Litigation and consumer protection in India

Social Action Litigation (SAL)¹ as an instrument for securing socioeconomic justice for the underprivileged has been one of the outstanding developments in the contemporary Indian legal world. Though the origin is American,² since its inception in the late 1970s SAL has undergone significant developments and has now acquired legitimacy in India. It has certainly revolutionised modern Indian public law and has more recently played an important role in environmental⁴ and consumer protection. The object of the present paper is to discuss the role of Social Action Litigation and to highlight new developments in the context of the newly emerging consumer protection jurisprudence in India.

---

Verbandsklagen und Rechtsdurchsetzung: eine Fallstudie zu Klagen im öffentlichen Interesse und Verbraucherschutz in Indien

Zusammenfassung Klagen im öffentlichen Interesse als ein Instrument zur Sicherung sozioökonomischer Gerechtigkeit für interprivilegierte Bevölkerungsschichten sind eine der herausragenden Entwicklungen im zeitgenössischen Recht. Ursprünglich in Amerika entwickelt, sind Klagen im öffentlichen Intresse seit ihrer Einführung in Indien in den spÄten 70er Jahren wesentlichen Entwicklungen unterworfen gewesen und haben inzwischen LegitimitÄt erreicht. Sie haben sicherlich das moderne indische öffentliche Recht revolutioniert und haben in der jüngsten Vergangenheit eine wichtige Rolle beim Umweltschutz und beim Verbraucherschutz gespielt. Der Beitrag diskutiert die Rolle der Klagen im öffentlichen Interesse und hebt neuere Entwicklungen im Zusammenhang mit dem neu entstehenden Verbraucherrecht in Indien hervor.

---

---

The author wishes to express his gratitude to Dr. Werner F. Menski, Senior Lecturer in Laws, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, for his valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

国际贸易中企业知识产权保护和侵权问题的研究——以苹果公司和唯冠公司商标诉讼案为例

苹果和唯冠之间的ipad商标诉讼案,使苹果公司在中国大陆的市场发展有所减缓,本案件暴露的问题也为中国企业对自己知识产权的保护提供了一定的借鉴作用。在实施知识产权战略中,应坚持政府为主导,引导企业发展的方向;全民参与,提高公众的保护意识;修订和制定相关的知识产权法律法规,完善知识产权体系;进一步实施知识产权战略,提升企业自主创新能力。     

The quality of British marketing: A comparison with US and Japanese multinationals in the UK market

This paper presents the findings of an empirical study comparing the marketing strategies and organisations of a matched sample of British companies and their US and Japanese competitors in the UK. Hypotheses about Japanese marketing are tested and provide a framework for the comparative analysis of the marketing effectiveness of the three sets of competitors. The findings highlight significant weaknesses in the marketing effort of British companies, these being exacerbated by excessive focus on short‐run financial gains. The US competitors, equally concerned with short‐term profits, were less committed to the UK market than their Japanese rivals, their market position being in danger of deteriorating further as the Japanese close the technological gap between them. The Japanese were unmistakably aggressive, single‐minded in their pursuit of market share and undeniably more market‐oriented than their US and British counterparts. This research was funded by the ESRC.     

A study of the Consumer Ombudsman institution in Norway with some references to the other Nordic countries I: Background and description

In the seventies, the Consumer Ombudsman (CO) institution was established in the four Nordic countries Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The CO is a supervisory body with the task of controlling that marketing methods used by business when selling goods and providing services are in conformity with the legislation. This article supplies information about the legislation and the role played by the CO in the supervisory system. It deals primarily with the Norwegian situation but makes references to the situation in the three other countries as well. It is pointed out that the most important difference between the old legislation on improper competition and the present Marketing Control Act is the establishment of new enforcement mechanisms. The contents of the legislation have not undergone any dramatic changes. In a companion article to follow in a later issue of JCP, an attempt is made to evaluate the work of the Norwegian CO and the Market Council. The position of business is described, and some present deregulation considerations are discussed.     

消费物价上涨背景下的低收入者财政补贴研究——基于2007与2006的比较分析

本文在模拟低收入者效用函数的基础上,运用补偿性变化、等价性变化和消费者剩余变化,衡量了消费物价上涨对低收入者的影响。实证显示:低收入者2007年的效用等价于在2006年的物价水平下减少可支配收入125.2887元。如果财政补贴的目标是让低收入者的效用回到消费物价上涨前的水平,则需对低收入者补贴130.7842元;如果财政补贴的目标是弥补低收入者因消费物价上涨而减少的消费者剩余,则应对低收入者补贴128.3211元。