Published Article / The paper is concerned with the problem of Bayesian decision-makers seeking consensus about the decision that should be taken from a decision space. Each decision-maker has his own utility function and it is assumed that the parameter space has two points, Θ = {θ1,θ2 }. The initial probabilities of the decision-makers for Θ can be updated by information provided by an expert. The decision-makers have an opinion about the expert and this opinion is formed by the observation of the expert's performance in the past. It is shown how the decision-makers can decide beforehand, on the basis of this opinion, whether the consultation of an expert will result in consensus.

4 pp. / Engaging with one's local government on sustainable development ideas can seem daunting. Understanding your local government's structure and public meeting protocol is key to any citizen's initiative to influence and bring about change to their community. Many examples of sustainability plans and policies developed by other communities across the country are available on the internet to help citizens create some action in their own neighborhood that fosters sustainable development.

This thesis aims to contribute to Senegal's progress towards sustainable development planning. It presents how Senegalese planning system is structured as well as its potential and its limits to change. Senegal is a West African country classified as a least developed country. Senegalese decision-makers seek to provide economic and social well-being to their population, while ensuring a rational and sustainable use of ecological resources. They have demonstrated their commitment to sustainable development in official planning documents and several development programs. However, the process towards sustainability faces several constraints. The structure of the development planning system is complex and rigid; involving a plurality of state agencies, local entities, advisory bodies, citizens, and parliamentarians whose work is uncoordinated and inefficient. Furthermore, a tension exists because the political organization is based on a social vision, while development actions are derived from a liberal policy. In addition, planners and decisions-makers do not share the same understanding of sustainable development. The situation is made more complex by international influences on the concept of sustainability that call for the integration of principles such as gender equality and universal education, making it difficult to establish a clear and commonly understood approach to sustainability. While Senegal seeks human, technical, and financial resources from international donors, the conditions of financial foreign partners further complicates the development planning system. / Master of Urban and Regional Planning

The Federal Government spends $40 billion dollars a year maintaining its facility portfolio. As a result of the size of investment and current economic conditions, the government and other institutional owners are facing increased pressure to optimize their investment in their portfolios. Green design offers a way for owners to accomplish this. Part of the definition used by the General Services Administration (GSA) for sustainable or green design is minimizing the total life-cycle ownership cost of a facility. Many tools, such as BUILDER or IMPACT, are available to aid institutional owners in this task; however, most do not take into account non-rational behavior since they apply a strict rational logic. In order to develop tools that take non-rational behavior into account, a framework needs to be developed for identifying which actors are worth studying or modeling. This research seeks to fill this gap by developing a framework that can be applied to public sector institutional owners. The framework is based on prior work done in the fields of stakeholder theory and engineering management, and it uses research methodologies from the social sciences as its building blocks. / Master of Science

The purpose of this research was to determine if presentation format, given a particular task to be performed, would affect the decision-making process of financial decision makers. The problem motivating this study is the potential for managers to make inefficient decisions when they use reports which are presented inappropriately for a given task.

Information systems research tends to ignore individual differences in users. This laboratory experiment sought to illuminate contributions of decision-makers' cognitive processes to decision outcome as reflected in four hypothesis sets: the impact of imagery preference and presentation format upon (HI) recall accuracy and upon hemispheric activation during (H2) encoding and (H3) recall, and (H4) to examine the relationship between hemispheric activation differences and accuracy differences. Point-value (specific values) and intraset-pattern (relationships between values) recall were considered. Thirty MBA students, grouped by imagery preference (cognitive style) as favoring verbal (textual) or visual (graphical) information presentation, performed computer-based recall tasks using tabular and graphical formats in a repeated measures design. Hemispheric activation (cognitive process) was assessed using ratios of EEG activity in six frequency bands captured from six pairs of homologous electrode sites during encoding and recall.

Background: Long-term care nurses are in a pivotal position to be augmenting the quality of life for residents and improving the death and dying experience for residents, their family members and surrogate decision makers. Currently there is a paucity of literature that acknowledges the experiences of long-term care nurses and their involvement with end-of-life decision making and care. Purpose: To describe long-term care nurses’ perceptions of factors that influence their communication with end-of-life surrogate decision makers and the kind of support they need to support this discussion. Method: A descriptive study using mixed-methods convergent design was used to obtain responses from a sample of 30 long-term care nurses. An online survey included questions to obtain quantitative data and open-ended questions for short responses. Results from both sets of data were brought together and compared during the analysis phase. Results: The findings of this study highlight the personal factors of the nurse, the characteristics of the surrogate decision maker, contextual factors, situational related inputs, and the support desired by long-term care nurses. Participants rated factors according to importance in their experiences of communicating with surrogate decision makers. Seven themes were inductively derived from the analysis: 1) selected or appointed as surrogate makes a difference, 2) strong trusting bond between nurse-resident and nurse-family, 3) being too close to see resident’s wishes, 4) interdisciplinary team agreement, 5) living will as a communication roadmap, 6) peaceful environment, and 7) the need to create emotional distance. Long-term care nurses also identified the types of support they seek or need to be effective in communicating with end-of-life care surrogate decision makers. Conclusion: As the numbers of the older population continue to increase, the demand for nurses to develop expertise in caring for dying residents and communicating with them, their family members, and surrogate decision makers will increase. Understanding their experiences and providing support to long-term care nurses may strengthen their capacity to communicate about death and dying and their delivery of quality end-of-life care to residents.

This study provides a view of the decision-making process of Dutch company pension funds. The success of this research was the exceptional granting of access to four cases. Lack of such access could very well be the reason why research of this nature has not been previously achieved. The financial health of pension funds, expressed by the coverage ratio, showed a decline in 2008. Research has shown that there is a relationship between decision-making processes and outcome. Were the processes appropriate to set up and maintain a sufficient coverage ratio? A tailor-made conceptual research model has been developed and used as an analysis aid to research the TO BE situation based on legal requirements and factional documents and the AS IS situation based on empirical data. The model made it feasible to shed light on the implementation of good pension fund governance principles and decision-making process, which is a contribution to the current gap in research. The research showed that there is a relationship between the implementation of pension fund governance principles and appropriate decision-making processes. It also showed that there is a relationship between an appropriate decision-making process and coverage ratio. Both conclusions are not statistically proven due to the lack of the statistical significance, but are qualitative analysed and confirmed in the conducted case studies. It is suggested to use the research model by supervisor or pension funds to establish the mismatch between the implementation of pension fund governance principles and decision-making processes to enhance the quality of decision-making processes and outcome.

This thesis seeks to explore how key decision-makers within the Portuguese civil service formulate decisions regarding policies orientated at children with disabilities. It breaks the issue down by focusing on three main perspectives - the decisionmaker, the policy framework and children with disabilities. The decision-maker was analysed in the context her/his professional identity. By combining social identity theory (self-categorisation) and identity theory (role-identification) and interview data, this thesis found that the basis for decision-making was the way in which the term "children with disabilities" was identified and conceptualised by the decisionmaker, as well as the associated approaches, rules and guidelines at both the national and international level. It found a variable balance of influences between the concepts of parenting and families, the norms of the Portuguese welfare system and the emergent international thinking regarding children with disabilities. Through the use of a multi-method approach which incorporated interviews, vignettes and documentary analysis this thesis captured the approaches of each decision-maker. This thesis found that children with disabilities were predominantly viewed as dependants. The familialist structure of the Portuguese welfare state introduces the notion of a "disabled family", whereby the family carries the responsibility of addressing the challenges associated with children's disability and state support is directed at the family. In addition, this thesis found that "normalisation" was the predominant approach to disability, regardless of intended approach of each decision-maker. This study concluded that a combination of rehabilitative and integrative policy impulses in a context of limited and incomplete information and guidelines from international organisations have influenced this approach.

Syfte: Ingen kan hävda att de har missat den pågående klimatdebatten med ett fokus på den globala uppvärmningen. En ökad medvetenhet om miljömässig hållbarhet har bidragit till en integration av etisk beslutsfattning in i organisationer. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hypotesen att CSR leder till ett ökat fastighetsvärde. Vi ämnar även få en ökad förståelse för hur motivation påverkar etisk beslutsfattning och CSR. Metod: Studien har genomförts med en kvalitativ ansats inom ramen för en fallstudie. Empiriskt material har samlats in genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer med beslutsfattare inom den svenska fastighetsbranschen. En analys av aktuell forskning och litteratur samt en modell av Sekerka & Stimel (2012) har bidragit till den teoretiska referensramen. Slutsats & Resultat: Vi anser att miljömässig hållbarhet och det ekonomiska incitamentet går hand i hand och krävs idag för ekonomisk framgång. Då CSR tillämpas inom en organisation så har vi märkt att det inte är organisationstyperna som sedan påverkar om CSR ger ett ökat fastighetsvärde. Det är snarare organisationens mål med fastigheten. Svaret blir att långsiktiga intressenter anser att kostnaden för miljöinsatser leder till ett motsvarande eller en större värdeökning av fastigheterna. För att detta ska vara sant krävs dock en långsiktighet och långsiktiga mål med fastigheten. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Ett intressant synsätt skulle vara att modifiera och tillämpa Sekerka & Stimels (2012) modell vid jämförandet mellan olika branscher. Ett intressant ämne är hur miljömässig hållbarhet påverkar organisationers lönsamhet ur det ekonomiska perspektivet. Hur står svenska organisationers miljömässiga hållbarhetsarbete jämfört med utländska? Ett annat intressant område är hur miljömässig hållbarhet påverkas av externa bestämmelser så som lagstiftning och ökad myndighetskontroll. Under studiens gång har vi kommit fram till att Sekerka & Stimels (2012) modell har brister när den appliceras på den svenska fastighetsbranschen. Ett alternativ kan vara en utveckling och anpassning av Sekerka & Stimels (2012) modell för att lättare kunna appliceras mot en svensk bransch. Under de genomförda intervjuerna har flera organisationer talat om den sociala hållbarheten. Vi anser att det skulle vara intressant att genomföra en liknande studie inom CSR men med inriktning mot social hållbarhet Studiens bidrag: Studien bidrar till en ökad förståelse hur etisk beslutsfattning påverkar motivation av CSR. Studien bidrar även till ett tydliggörande av hur etisk beslutsfattning och miljömässig hållbarhet tillämpas inom den svenska fastighetsbranschen. Studien ger även svar på den praktiska frågan om CSR kan ge ett ökat fastighetsvärde. / Purpose: No one can argue and say that they have missed the ongoing climate debate which, focuses on global warming. An increased awareness of environmental sustainability has contributed to the integration of ethical decision-making in organizations. The study's purpose is to examine the hypothesis that CSR leads to increased property value we will also try to get a better understanding on how motivation effects ethical decision-making and CSR. Method: The study has been completed with a qualitative approach in the framework of a case study. Empirical material was gathered by semi-structured interviews preformed with decision-makers in the Swedish property industry. An analysis of the current research and literature, as well as a model by Sekerka & Stimels (2012) has contributed to the theoretical framework. Conclusion & Results: We believe that environmental sustainability and an economic incentive goes hand-in-hand and are required for financial success today. When CSR is applied within an organization, we have noticed that there is not the organizational type which affects whether CSR brings an increase in property value. Rather it is the organization's goals with the property. The answer is that long-term stakeholders believe that the cost of environmental measures leading to an equivalent or greater increase in the value of the properties. For this to be true it requires a long-term approach and long-term goal with the property. Further research: An interesting approach would be to modify and apply Sekerka & Stimels (2012) model in the comparison between different industries. An interesting topic is how environmental sustainability will affect an organization’s profitability within an economic perspective. How are Swedish organization’s environmental sustainability efforts compared with overseas? Another interesting area is how environmental sustainability are affected by external conditions such as legislation and increased government control. During the study we have come to the conclusion that Sekerka & Stimels (2012) model has shortcomings when applied to the Swedish property industry. An alternative can be an advancement and adaptation of Sekerka & Stimels (2012) model in order for it to be applied on a Swedish industry. During the interviews, several organizations talked about social. We believe that it would be interesting to conduct a similar study in CSR, but with focus on social sustainability Contribution: The study contributes to a better understanding of how ethical decision-making affects the motivation towards CSR. The study also contribute to a clarification of how ethical decision-making and environmental sustainability are applied in the Swedish property industry. The study will also provide answers to the practical matter: could CSR contribute to an increased property value.