CIVINS / A decision analysis study was conducted on the process of materials selection for high-speed naval craft using the Modified Digital Logic (MDL) method. The purpose is to show how this method along with Ashby's material selection process can be integrated to provide a comprehensive tool designed specifically for light-weight material optimization. Using Ashby's Material Selection Charts and the MDL method, a step by step material selection process is outlined. Furthermore, a comparison of the materials based on equivalent plate uni-axial ideal elastic compressive stress was completed using the American Bureau of Shipbuilding (ABS) Guide for Building and Classing High-Speed Naval Craft and then an evaluation was done to optimize material selection depending on the designer's preference for weight and cost, The potential materials for evaluation were selected using Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) references for the most current materials in use, or being evaluated, for light weight naval construction. The results demonstrate the feasibility of using the MDL method to select one or more materials based on desired mechanical and structural characteristics. The study also introduces the potential use of non-traditional materials in Naval Architecture, such as Ultra High-Performance Concrete Composite (UHP2C) DUCTAL. / Contract number: N62271-97-G-0026. / CIVINS

Emergency call takers listen to callers expressing mundane errands, but also to callers who describe severe accidents, agony and deaths. The emergency setting is further complicated by having to perform triage under time-pressure, but without possibilities of seeing the patient. The setting rests on an imperative of speedy management—there are few or no possibilities to postpone or reconsider decisions. At the same time, the mode of communication (telephone) may cause overflow or insufficient information, resulting in an uncertain and ambiguous decision setting. A focal point for the organization is therefore the individual capability of conducting triage. However, call takers are also helped by organizational routines, which are manifested in decision support systems, in order to navigate this uncertain and ambiguous setting. Taken together, the emergency setting brings a tension to the fore—how does this emotional setting, with features of vivid and interruptive experiences that possibly detour normative decisions, interact with routines that are supposed to provide for both stability and that recurrent decisions can be made under similar conditions? Drawing on the fields of psychology, decision making, organization theory and communication theory the tension is investigated by a series of four studies. The first study is a field study of the emotional landscape of emergency call taking. Emergency call takers rated callers’ emotional expressions in authentic emergency calls, the level of intensity and expressed need for help. The second study is an experiment, using a speech sample from authentic emergency calls in order to find out whether expressed emotion and intensity contribute to perceived need for help. The third study focuses on management strategies of call takers. More specifically, how do emergency call takers manage double-faced emotional management—i.e., their own and the caller’s emotions—simultaneously? The fourth study focuses on how call takers make decisions, more specifically how call takers use intuitive and emotional capabilities to complement or challenge rational aspects of the decision support systems. The studies reveal that certain emotions occur more often than others and that the level of intensity of expression contributes to perceived help need. Call takers have also developed specific emotional management strategies in order to cope with both callers’ and their own emotions. Finally, call takers were found to use rational and formal routines as well as non-formal, intuitive and emotionally based individual routines in order to derive their decisions. These findings are put into organizational context in terms of implications for emergency call taking. Limitations to the development of situation-specific expertise and obstacles for organizational learning are identified. Also, emergency call taking would benefit from drawing on knowledge found outside of the medical domain. However, the most important finding is that interpretation of emotional expressions in callers’ voices can trigger modifications of the triage routine in use. / <p>Disp. June 12</p>

The purpose of this study was to explore how a small group of white South African men going through menopause attached meaning to this major event in their lives, and also how it affected the decisions they took as leaders in the financial sector. In view of the fact that menopause is a natural process that, according to the existing literature, has a strong influence on men’s behaviour, the following research question was formulated: “Do behavioural changes due to menopause ultimately affect men’s social lives, and particularly their behaviour in the work environment where as leaders they take important decisions?” In collecting data I followed a field research approach where focused interviews were used involving asking questions, listening, expressing interest and recording what was said. Five participants were selected, including myself (I provided an autoethnographic narrative). Having opted for a particular application of the grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and in keeping within the requirements of modernist qualitative research, i.e., providing sufficient information to establish the study’s credibility, and at the same time giving the participants a voice, I conveyed the data, the findings of the study, and the inferences I made according to grounded theory’s three analytical steps namely, open coding, axial coding and selective coding. The findings indicated that menopause symptoms in particular (their physical, psychological and sexual dimensions) had a profound influence on the systemic male. The themes that I inferred from the data through continuous and systematic comparisons were related to decision-making in the work environment. This continuous comparative approach crystallised in the study’s emerging core theme, namely: “the decreased need for work power in the work environment due to psychological integration occurring during their menopause” as well as its substantive theory: “work power trade-offs result in decreased decision-making power during the male menopause phase”.

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Decision making activity is at the heart of organisations and, as an essential managerial function, it has been the subject of an immense body of literature. As the majority of research has been undertaken within the disciplines of economics and psychology, studies have tended to emphasise economic rationality as the basis for cognitive reasoning, decision processes and judgement and as the analytic paradigm. However, in the face of new problems, and in times of profound change, conventional forms of thought may be problematic in themselves. This project suggests and assesses a Foucaultian framework as an alternative approach to the study of managerial decision making. Within a multiple case-study strategy, evidence has been collected from three manufacturing companies in Devon and Cornwall, using a range of qualitative methods; derived from ethnography, historiography, and grounded theory. A major decisional theme emerged in each case study: employee participation, linked to the nonrecognition of trade unions; Japanese managerial techniques (Kaizen); and product quality. A Foucaultian approach to discourse analysis was used to assess the trajectories of systems of management thought; nature and influence of changes in management discourse, and the resulting vacillation in power/knowledge relations within these three organisations. Genealogical assessment of alterations in organisational culture reveals shifts in the power relations which produce and maintain those decision outcomes; which, in their turn, establish and affirm the power relations. Among them are stereotypes that are problematised by non-unionism; the historical possibilities giving rise to the discourse and practices of Kaizen; discursive motifs on quality, and the formation of new discourses. Comparative archaeology of the various concepts of quality, as apprehended within the study, has identified two major currents of discourse. Neither discourse is inherently advantageous or harmful to an organisation but, where discourses are both present, and in competition, the resulting dichotomy is disorientating for organisational actors and potentially lethal to business performance.

D.Econ. / The idea of this dissertation has its origin in the experience of an engineer who often found himself deeply Involved In the making of Investment decisions. The main objective of this Investigation is to develop an Investment decision making model that would fulfil the demands of contemporary business better than the existing models. Such model should, firstly, be based on a sound theory. It should, however, also be easy to handle, and thirdly, be transparent to all bodies and functionaries involved in making the ultimate decision. These demands culminated In the central theme of this dissertation, namely the development of a Multlfact model that would lend itself readily to everyday use.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

North American social psychology has evolved within a culture that values an individualistic ideology. Therefore, when investigating social phenomena, the social psychologist rarely looks past the individual(s) involoved to social processes. As a result, actual social processes have seldom been studied. For example, in the classic studies performed by Sherif (1935) and Asch (1958) social influence was investigated exclusively through the behavioural products of the individual. In this thesis social influence was studied as an intrinsic social process. Twenty-two dyads completed a stimulus task wherein they made a joint decision about 12 simple stimuli. In order to have empirical access to the social processes involved, the participants were allowed to talk freely with each other. As a result, the discourse that was generated provided the data for the investigation. In other words, the interactions were the objects of investigation. Examination of the dialogues in terms of the function of the talk revealed a process that resembled scientific fact construction (Latour & Woolgar, 1979; Latour, 1987). That is, the discourse moved through a continuum of "facticity" identifiable by the following functions: Statements of Hypothesis (wherein the interlocutors tentatively introduced a stimulus to be discussed), Statements of Individual Fact (where the participants offered their own assessments), and Statements of Social Fact (in which the participants agreed or disagreed about their individual assessments). Quantitative analyses of the dialogues showed that certain patterns emerged with respect to these functions. There were differences in how the talk progressed when participants agreed with each other and when they disagreed. These differences provided a basis of comparison for subsequent analyses. For example, the frequency and order of the three functions differed for agreements and disagreements. There was also a combination of certain utterances that functioned as grounding or summarizing places for the participants during the task. These differed in structure from both agreements and disagreements, and tended to occur later in the dialogues. / Graduate

This dissertation tackles two important developing topics in economics: network formation and the allocation of attention. First, it examine the idea that the timing of entry into the network is a crucial determinant of a node’s final centrality. We propose a model of strategic network growth which makes novel predictions about the forward-looking behaviors of players. In particular, the model predicts that agents entering the network at specific times will become central “vie for dominance”. In a laboratory experiment, we find that players do exhibit “vying for dominance” behavior, but do not always do so at the predicted critical times. A model of heterogeneous risk aversion best fits the observed deviations from initial predictions. Timing determines whether players have the opportunity to become attempt to become dominant, but individual characteristics determine whether players exploit that opportunity. This dissertation also examines models of rational inattention, in which decision-makers rationally evaluate the trade-off between the costs and the benefits of information acquisition. We provide results on recovering the implicit attention cost function by looking at the relationship between incentives and performance. We conduct laboratory experiments consisting of simple perceptual tasks with fine-grained variation in the level of potential rewards. We find that most subjects exhibit monotonicity in performance with respect to potential rewards, and there is mixed evidence on continuity and convexity of costs. We also perform a model selection exercise and find that subjects’ behavior is generally most consistent with a small but diverse subset of cost functions commonly assumed in the literature.