This thesis developed a pragmatic approach to the optimization of business decisions in the chloralkali industry utilizing basic marginal analysis concepts. It attempted to meld accounting principles and techniques with economic concepts for the purpose of establishing a rationale and a workable model for guiding and evaluating everyday business decisions. The approach concentrated on short run decision making and did not get involved with capital and other variables which were fixed in the short run. Many attempts to apply marginal analysis to the real world have had only limited success. The concepts as outlined in this thesis used a particular empirical example to circumvent some of the inherent difficulties associated with marginal analysis. The emphasis in this study was to develop a useful business tool and not to fit theoretical economic concepts into the real world. The special requirements for this model were a capital intensive multiproduct company with a vertically integrated production line. Each product manufactured should have two outlets; a) to be used as raw materials to upgrade the product by further processing, or b) to be sold in the market place. Consequently, the product lines will be developed from relatively few raw materials. This is the situation in most petrochemical and inorganic chemical plants, oil refineries, and could even be applied to entire industries such as forest products, and pulp and paper. Although the chloralkali model's construction were discussed, the model itself was not included in the thesis. The particular model used was large and complex, specially adapted for the firm, and as a result contained confidential information and relationships which were difficult to disguise. The empirical example assisted in the development of the essential concepts but did little to contribute to the proving of the hypothesis. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

A new approach for making management decisions about the logging of forested streambanks is presented in this thesis. For several years administrative guidelines or regulatory clauses have required that narrow strips of vegetation be left along all streambanks after logging but experience with these guidelines or regulatory clauses has not always been satisfactory. In many cases the type of strip that is left is not well suited to the particular streambank site or to the needs of the users of that site and a new procedure for making streambank management decisions is clearly needed. The decision-making procedure developed and tested in this thesis provides a routine, consistent method for site-specific decision-making on any Vancouver Island streambank site slated for logging. It includes a range of possible management alternatives and a method for determining which alternative is appropriate to a given site. A checklist is used to assess a number of physical characteristics of the stream and streambank and to determine the resource uses of the site. The value of the vegetation along the streambank to the users is then identified and from this environmental basis, the width and type of vegetated leave strip best suited to the integrated use management of the site is indicated. The procedure was field tested on seven different streambank sites on Vancouver Island. Checklists were completed by individual participants and decisions about the width and type of strip to be left were made according to the procedure. Written qualitative comments were solicited. Analysis of the field test results indicated that there were a number of shortcomings in the checklist and in the procedure generally and revisions and improvements are suggested. There was however sufficient consistency in the results to indicate that the procedure could be used routinely and consistently by field level personnel and would improve streambank management decisions. The qualitative reaction to the procedure was generally favourable. It was felt to be a useful and valuable innovation and several participants indicated that they would be prepared to use it on an operational basis. It is concluded that a useful procedure for making site-specific integrated use decisions has been developed for forested streambanks. Recommendations are made for further improvement of this procedure and for its application to other resource management problems. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

The information seeking behaviour of decision makers is an important aspect of the rational decision making process. This study examined the information seeking behaviour of students of educational administration in an attempt to more fully understand the decision making process and thus provide a basis for improving rational decision making. A statistical decision game was devised which utilized a Bayesian norm. The value of information to a decision maker was calculated from the game and then compared to the value defined by the Bayesian norm. The sample consisted of twenty-nine part-time students enrolled in winter session courses in the University of British Columbia (U.B.C.) Department of Educational Administration. This sample included students with various amounts of completed class work and educational administrative experience. Three independent variables were defined. The first variable, administrative experience had two levels. One level consisted of those with at least one year of administrative experience, the other consisted of those with no administrative experience. The second variable, graduate level training, had two levels. One level consisted of those who had completed at least three units of graduate level course work in educational administration. The other consisted of those who had not completed any coursework. The third variable, consisted of three divisions with two levels each and introduced varia tion across the eight games. The dependent variable, information seeking bias, was defined as the difference between the quantified value of information to the decision maker and that value ascribed by the Bayesian norm. The sample was tested in separate groups ranging in size from three to six. Each person in a group viewed the same sequence of eight games, corresponding to the eight treatment levels of factor C; however, each group had a different randomly determined sequence of games. The following five research questions were examined: (1) Do students of educational administration tend to seek the same amount of information as purely Bayesian players in a programmable decision situation? (2) Do students of educational administration with administrative experience behave differently than students with no administrative experience in their tendency to seek information? (3) Do students of educational administration who have completed three or more units of graduate level training in educational administration behave differently than students with no training in their tendency to seek information? (4) Among students of educational administration does varying the prior probabilities and payoff parameters in the statistical decision game effect the tendency to seek information? (5) Does information seeking bias change over the sequence of games? Does learning take place? The experimental design was based on Winer's (1971) three factorial repeated measure design (case II). In research question four a Scheffe Test was to be employed if the previous analysis indicated certain combinations of treatment levels in factor C had resulted in significant findings. Research question five was analyzed by graphing the information seeking bias for the various subject groups over the sequence of games. It was found that the group as a whole showed a strong tendency to seek more information than the Bayesian optimal. The hypothesis that the mean information seeking bias between the two levels of experience and training was the same could not be rejected. However, the interaction effects between factors A (experience) and C (repeated measures) and between factors B (training) and C were found to be significant at the .10 level. Finally, strong learning curves were noted for all subject groups. As the sequence of games progressed, the mean information seeking bias for all subject groups more closely approximated the Bayesian optimal strategy. It was noted, however, that experienced administrators tended to approach the Bayesian optimal strategy at a faster rate than the non-experienced group. The study concluded by recommending that programme developers in educational administration should attend to (1) the previous training and administrative experience of students and (2) the conditions under which decisions are made, when planning for future programs on decision making. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

This research investigated a number of hypotheses concerning the form of social influence between factions in small group decision making. In an effort to avoid the bias which may result from the use of confederates in such research, the six person groups used in this study were composed entirely of experimentally naive subjects. Five specific hypotheses were investigated: a) that the influence of a faction depends upon the extent to which they are perceived as cohesive and consistent by the others (i.e., on their apparent solidarity); b) that as the size of a faction increases, that faction will be perceived by the others as being both more competent and less confident with respect to the issue at hand; c) that the faction which wins the first convert will exert more influence on the final decision; d) that disagreement will be solved by compromise; e) that the influence of a faction is a function of the frequency of communication by that faction. The problem discussed was a labour-management dispute. Eight to ten volunteer subjects whose responses to a wage settlement item on an opinion survey fell into either the range of 87o-127o or 307o-407o were scheduled to participate in a group, with this scheduling manipulated in such a way that there was a majority of "high" subjects assigned to each group. On arriving for the experiment, subjects were given a brief description of a labour dispute and asked to indicate their personal belief regarding the proper percentage wage increase. Six of the subjects were then selected to serve as the discussants, and the remaining subjects were asked to act as observers. Because the survey opinions proved to be unreliable indicators of the responses to the issue used in the experiment, the initial groups of eight to ten subjects often did not have a distinct "high" -"low" split, and for this reason the selection of the six discussants was done so as to maximize the polarization within the discussion group. The discussants were then given twenty-five minutes in which to simulate an arbitration of the dispute and to reach an agreement. During the discussion, the observer subjects and the two experimenters observed the group from an adjacent room through an observational glass. The discussion was recorded on audio tape and the two experimenters also independently coded each comment made by the subjects in terms of which person was speaking, to whom she spoke, and whether her comment favoured a "high" or "low" decision. When the group reached consensus (or at the end of the allotted time), all subjects completed a questionnaire concerning the course of the discussion, characteristics of the discussants, and opinions on a similar case. Fifteen discussion groups were used in the study. The results indicate: a) that compromise was not the means by which decisions were reached; b) that while the final decision did not always favour the faction which won the first convert, that faction was generally more influential; and c) that the other three hypotheses were unsupported. There are certain limitations to the generalizability of these data, based upon the combination of the small sample size and the amount of between group variability. The implications of these factors are discussed in detail, both with respect to the reliability of the obtained results and the problems for future research. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Luo, Xueying. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-120). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract and appendix also in Chinese.

Bi-level programming techniques are developed for decentralized decision problems with decision makers located in a two-level decision making system; the upper decision maker is termed the leader while the lower is the follower. Both the leader and the follower try to optimise their own objective functions and the corresponding decisions do not control but do affect those of the other level. This research aims at solving bi-level decision problems with five extensions, i.e. multiple leaders/followers/objectives, fuzzy coefficients and goals. By using particle swarm optimisation and/or cut set and/or goal programming and/or Nash equilibrium concept, related mathematical models and corresponding algorithms are developed to solve fuzzy linear bi-level decision problems, fuzzy linear multi-objective bi-level decision problems, fuzzy linear multi-follower multi-objective bi-level decision problems, fuzzy linear goal bi-level decision problems, multi-leader one-follower bi-level decision problems, one-leader multi-follower bi-level decision problems, and multileader multi-follower bi-level decision problems. A fuzzy bi-level decision support system is then developed which implements all the algorithms to support bi-level decision making with different features. Finally, by using these bi-level models and algorithms, we explore possible applications in the fields of railway train set organisation, railway wagon flow management, strategic bidding in the electricity market, and supply chains to solve real world bi-level decision problems. The results of experiments show that the models and algorithms are effective for solving real world bi-level decision problems.

Bi-level programming techniques are developed for decentralized decision problems with decision makers located in a two-level decision making system; the upper decision maker is termed the leader while the lower is the follower. Both the leader and the follower try to optimise their own objective functions and the corresponding decisions do not control but do affect those of the other level. This research aims at solving bi-level decision problems with five extensions, i.e. multiple leaders/followers/objectives, fuzzy coefficients and goals. By using particle swarm optimisation and/or cut set and/or goal programming and/or Nash equilibrium concept, related mathematical models and corresponding algorithms are developed to solve fuzzy linear bi-level decision problems, fuzzy linear multi-objective bi-level decision problems, fuzzy linear multi-follower multi-objective bi-level decision problems, fuzzy linear goal bi-level decision problems, multi-leader one-follower bi-level decision problems, one-leader multi-follower bi-level decision problems, and multileader multi-follower bi-level decision problems. A fuzzy bi-level decision support system is then developed which implements all the algorithms to support bi-level decision making with different features. Finally, by using these bi-level models and algorithms, we explore possible applications in the fields of railway train set organisation, railway wagon flow management, strategic bidding in the electricity market, and supply chains to solve real world bi-level decision problems. The results of experiments show that the models and algorithms are effective for solving real world bi-level decision problems.

No description available.

In modern organizations where managers must constantly be dealing with an overload of information, it is often observed that participants in group decision processes either are not clearly aware of their specific preferences or that they are not capable of properly formulating those preferences. When this happens, inconsistent or incomplete expression of personal preferences and their use in decision making may lead to an unjustifiable outcome for the group. Due to this problem, the strengths and effectiveness of GDSS-supported group meetings may, in some situations, not be apparent. This dissertation develops a new approach to supporting group decision making, focusing on preference knowledge of individual participants in a group. A system architecture for the design of an MCDM (Multiple Criteria Decision Making) GDSS which facilitates the process of eliciting, formulating, utilizing, aggregating, and analyzing preferences for individuals within groups is presented. The architecture integrates multi-criteria decision making paradigms with a group decision support environment. A prototype has been developed in order to demonstrate the design feasibility of an architecture that centers around four phases of choice making: alternative generation, preference specification, alternative evaluation, and preference aggregation. The prototype is designed to support managerial choice and judgment processes in collaborative meetings. The intended problem domain of the model is semi-structured managerial decisions for which decision variables (attributes) can be represented in quantitative terms to some extent, yet for which evaluation of alternatives requires a high degree of intuition and personal analysis. The process of prototyping the proposed architecture and the results from a qualitative study have provided some instructive conclusions relating to MCDM GDSS design: (1) support for human choice strategies can be integrated into a GDSS, (2) appropriate management of preferences of group participants will facilitate collaborative decision processes, (3) hierarchical decomposition of a decision problem can provide structure to a problem and thereby reduce problem complexity, and (4) managerial decisions are appropriate problems to which the current approach can be applied.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1974. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 363-372). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center