There has been increasing research interest in recent years in using the power of computers to support group work. There have been two main areas of research: experimental research into GDSS supported group work in laboratory settings, and research designed to develop GDSSs which are effective, efficient and acceptable to their users. However, there have been some contradictory findings from these two areas of research. The developmental effort has shown great promise in relatively controlled developmental settings. At the same time, experimental research has indicated that GDSSs may not provide the hoped for increases in effectiveness and efficiency while being accepted by their users. This study has attempted to clarify this situation by using a field study to assess the implementation of a GDSS in an operational environment. The setting for this study was a large engineering and manufacturing site of a large electronics company. A GDSS which had been developed at the University of Arizona was installed at the host company's site, and it was assessed for the first nine months of its use. Results indicate that the system was perceived to be effective, efficient and acceptable for use by its intended users.

This study isolates the impact of certain factors upon the decision making of the United States Supreme Court. Selected group theory methodology is applied to the Court's decisions from 1969 through 1973. The group structure of the Court, the impact of personnel change, and the effect of judicial attitudes on public policy are explored and statistically measured with a chisquare. Schubert's bloc analysis and a Guttman scale are used to order the data. Conclusions include that two stable blocs existed on the Court during these years. Personnel change is demonstrated as causative of alterations in judicial behavior. Seven of eight groups of cases are shown to stimulate values of the Justices. Suggestions are made for further research.

Challenges in global politics like climate change, maritime piracy and fighting highly contagious diseases concern global public goods. The related policy decisions are mostly made by teams. In contrast, economic models of global public goods typically assume a single rational decision-maker. We use a laboratory experiment to compare team decisions to decisions of individuals in a finitely repeated public good game with and without a costly punishment option. Teams of three participants coordinate on decisions either by majority or unanimity rule. We find that in absence of a punishment option teams contribute more to the public good than individuals. With a punishment option subsequently to the contribution decision team treatments exhibit a less frequent use of anti-social punishment and lower levels of social as well as anti-social punishment. Extreme preferences for punishment are eliminated by the majority decision rule. Overall, team decisions are closer to the social optimum and teams yield higher net payoffs when compared to individuals.

Companies’ entrepreneurial actions entail all sorts of conquences among these ethical consequences. While the media reports on unethical activities and blames companies for those actions, the global market economy, with few exceptions, does not value ethical behavior. Consequently, businesses continue to prioritize the pursuit of profits over the consideration of ethical issues. Research suggests that this situation together with traditionally vertical leadership structures produces conflicts in decision-making processes between profit and ethical value goals. New styles of leadership and decision-making are needed to overcome this conflict. Thus, the aim of this project is to identify the characteristics of shared leadership that are perceived as positively influencing corporate decision-making processes with regards to the integration of ethical considerations. A case study approach is chosen to study the phenomenon in a real-life context. A German small-size company practicing shared leadership funcions as the case study. The report presents a framework to analyze various factors regarding. Empirical data from interviews and on-site observations are analyzed using a framework created based on previous research, highlighting inputs, processes and outputs of the decision-making processes in shared leadership. The findings show that individuals’ personalities, intra-team relations, organizational culture, rules and the use of a decision-making tool aiming at consent are important influencing factors of decision-making in shared leadership.

Although recognized as an important stage of the merger and acquisition (M&A) process, little is understood about the processes that unfold during deal negotiations. In line with recent qualitative research highlighting the role of interorganizational trust, I examine the role of acquirer trust during M&A negotiations. Specifically, through two essays, I consider the effects of acquirer trust on two outcome variables: the acquisition premium and target executive retention. In Essay One, I integrate the social embeddedness theory and agency theory and find that acquirer trust leads to higher premiums. In Essay Two, I integrate the social embeddedness perspective with justice theory and find that the positive relationship between acquirer trust and target executive retention is mediated by justice. Boundary conditions are also considered in each essay. These two essay provide contributions to the nascent literature on M&A negotiations and the complex role of trust in M&A negotiations. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

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In a plural democratic society, the macro phenomena and policies are formed by individual cognition and choices. Thus the field of decision-making and judgment analysis based on individual cognitions has become the major analytical method in the public affairs management. The citizenship view of the republicanism requires citizens to reach consensus. The group decision-making method is so helpful for reaching consensus and overcoming the limits of individual cognition that it¡¦s necessary in forming public policies. By reviewing various group decision-making methods, the study found that there are at least Program Planning Method (PPM; Delbecq & Van de Ven, 1971), Policy Delphi (Turoff, 1970), Interactive Management(IM; Warfield & Cárdenas, 1994), and Social Judgment Theory(SJT; Hammond, 1965, 1996; Hammond et al., 1975, 1977, 1980) can be used to reach consensus in a plural society. Among them, the IM results have been proven effective for solving complicated problems and compliant with citizen participation spirit of a plural society ( Wang Min-shen & Chang Ning, 2002; Warfield & Cárdenas, 1994) . However, the accuracy of IM results can not be proven by the method and the weight between factors can not be identified, either. SJT can be used to analyze the assumption between decision criteria of different hierarchies and obtain the weights between different factors out of the same result so that SJT can examine the annotated graphics of IM. Besides, since SJT emphasizes cognitive feedback, it can facilitate reaching consensus by comparing various stakeholders¡¦ judgment principles dissolving the cognitive conflicts. Thus the study applied theoretical SJT to examine the validity of IM results. I discussed SJT procedure in a collective, hierarchic and large-scaled way. The study also adopted classic experimental design to compare the cognitive changes of participants before and after the SJT procedure to explore the performance of SJT results of group decision-making in public affairs cases in terms of consistency, individual learning effect and satisfaction. The results of this study show that SJT procedure can be operated in a large-scaled way while consensus with high satisfaction will be reached. In addition, the theoretical validity of IM results on psychological cognition provides the reason why participants accepted the results. Talking about the changes of the participants¡¦ cognition through SJT procedure, the participants using SJT have not improved their consistency, while the learning effect changes significantly towards group conclusion. In the subjective evaluations such as satisfaction, learning effect and caring degree, the participants who use SJT are better than those who don¡¦t, but not better than those who use IM procedure. In terms of policy significance, though the covert consistency between the participants who use SJT has not been improved, their overt satisfaction towards the group conclusion is better than those who don¡¦t. It shows that the conflict between participants has not disappeared yet, while they accept the consensus. Therefore, the way to wipe away the conflicts in a plural society is not to build up a single exclusive value, but to design a procedure allowing the stakeholders accept consensus.

Originally presented as the author's Ph. D. thesis, University Fridericiana, Karlsruhe, Germany. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [199]-205).

Project Thesis (D. Min.)--Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 273-284).

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