In this study, an integrated solution methodology for a general discrete multi-criteria decision making problem is developed based on the well-known outranking method Promethee II. While the methodology handles the existence of interdependency between the criteria, it can also incorporate the prospect theory in order to correctly reflect the decision behavior of the decision maker. A software is also developed for the application of the methodology and some applications are performed and presented.

This dissertation is an analysis of how presidents make foreign policy decisions. Rather than explaining foreign policy decisions by focusing on individuals or institutions, I stress the role of political pressures and context faced by presidents. It shows that foreign policy decisions are not merely a reaction to stimulus from the international or domestic arenas but involve political considerations that affect policy choice. The dynamic elements in the argument are political resources and risk. The relationship between the risk propensity of the president and presidential political resources provides an important link to understanding foreign policy decisions. Within the realm of good public policy, a politically rational president can choose to act or respond to foreign policy disputes in various ways, including diplomacy, political coercion, economic coercion, covert action, or military intervention, based on his assessment of the political context and his willingness to accept the associated risks. The level of presidential political resources determines the risk propensity of the president. Presidential foreign policy decisions will vary depending on the quantity of available political resources. Thus, understanding the risk propensity of the president increases our ability to explain foreign policy decisions. The contribution of this research is the identification of a mechanism for understanding how the interaction between the domestic and international political environments, and individual decision-makers influence foreign policy decisions. My research bridges the gap between structural theories, “theories that make predictions about foreign policy outcomes without reference to the cognition and actions of the actors themselves,” and decision-making theories that stress the role of the actors (Ikenberry 2002, 5). Although the component parts of the foreign policy decisionmaking system are widely known, we lack theories that tie the pieces together.

The present study aimed to apply the framing effects in prospect theory to examine college students¡¦ risk tendencies under the context of educational marketing. Prospect theory proposes that framing effects result in a preference for risk-averse choices in gain situations and risk-seeking choices in loss situations. Frame in this research was treated as a between-subjects factor. Participants were randomly assigned to either the gain or loss condition with the counter-balanced method. The decision tasks consisted of four domains of marketing mix, i.e., product, price, place, and promotion. The results showed that participants¡¦ risk tendencies were in accordance with the predictions from the perspective of framing effects. Reference points were employed by participants to determine gain or loss framing. Specifically, risk-averse tendencies were more prominent in gain situations than those in loss situations, whereas risk-seeking tendencies were more pronounced in loss situations than those in gain situations. Hence, in order to produce desirable outcomes of marketing mix in educational marketing, marketers in higher education should take the influences of reference point and framing effects on decision-making into consideration.

The internationalization of SMEs has been recognized as one of the important paths to growth in SMEs. However, internationalization is also a resource and competence-demanding process. This is especially true for smaller-sized SMEs – the small and micro-sized firms – which have a large resource constraint, making internationalization even more challenging. Although this group of small firms counts for an average of over 98% of the total population of enterprises in EU countries, extant research on the internationalization of this group is still limited. Therefore, the main purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to a better understanding of evolving patterns of internationalization in the smaller-sized SMEs. The study uses emerging market entry along the internationalization of small firms as a context to probe the dynamics of perceived risk (uncertainty) and perceived opportunity in different foreign markets which influence the important decisions of small firms during their internationalization. The main study takes a longitudinal approach and uses mixed methods to investigate the features in both the initial period and the continued period of internationalization. It mainly builds on a multiple-case study of 12 Swedish firms, which have/had emerging market entry experience and/or involvement. This study illustrates influences from the environmental, organizational and individual levels on evolving patterns of internationalization in the investigated firms. This dissertation concludes that critical decisions and actions taken in the internationalization process depend on interactions among the influence and resources from the three levels. Such interactions form a conditional preference on perceived risk (uncertainty) and perceived opportunity during the internationalization of small firms. The study further proposes that the dynamics in the internationalization process are caused by a prospect-guided change mechanism. This dissertation contributes to the literature by: differentiating patterns of internationalization; enriching the study of “born global” in the continued period of internationalization; introducing a new perspective on the interpretation of dynamics in the internationalization; and increasing the understanding on the interactions of resources from three levels on the internationalization of small firms.

Interpersonal conflict, a process involving perceptions of differences and opposition, is often an undesired but inevitable consequence of interaction between individuals. Multiple goals (internal representations of desired states) can be present in interpersonal conflict. Past studies identify four major categories of conflict-related goals: content goals, relationship goals, identity goals, and process goals; the last three may be classified together as social goals. Several hypotheses were tested in an online experiment in which adult members of evangelical churches (N = 276) imagined themselves in various church-related conflict situations. Participants were assigned to one of two conditions; in one condition, participants read scenarios where their content goals were achieved and in the other condition, participants read scenarios where their content goals were not achieved. Each participant read a series of three scenarios involving the different types of social goals. For each of the three scenarios, they imagined how satisfied they would be with two different outcomes. In the first outcome, in addition to achieving or not achieving their content goal (depending on the condition), they did not achieve the social goal that was made salient (e.g., the relationship is damaged or they lose face); in the second outcome, they achieved this social goal. In addition, participants completed individual difference measures of dominance, sociability, face threat sensitivity, and justice sensitivity. This study found support for the hypothesis that the achievement of each type of conflict-related goal leads to greater satisfaction with the conflict outcome than not achieving the goal. It also found support for the hypothesis that the achievement of two conflict-related goals (specifically, a content goal and a social goal) interact to lead to greater satisfaction with the conflict outcome beyond the main effects of achieving each goal individually. Additionally, this study tested hypotheses that individual differences (dominance, sociability, face threat sensitivity, and justice sensitivity) moderate the relationship between conflict-related goal achievement and conflict outcome satisfaction. Support was only found for the hypothesis that individuals higher in sociability report greater differences in satisfaction when their relationship goals are achieved (relative to not achieved) than those who score lower in sociability. The results imply that, when both a content goal and a social goal are present, disputants are especially satisfied when both goals are achieved. Exploratory analyses also indicated females, younger adults, and people with greater church involvement responded more strongly to achieving goals than males, older adults, and those with less church involvement. This information can be used by disputants, negotiators, and mediators who are concerned about maximizing joint outcomes.

Zugl.: Rostock, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 2008

Zugl.: Trier, Univ., Diss., 2008

St. Gallen, Univ., Diss., 2007.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-12-14Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:52:03Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 silvafilho_dm_me_arafcl.pdf: 714760 bytes, checksum: ea2cad49fd5cf43f5dd3ab6e40dfd07a (MD5) / As Finanças Comportamentais, com base em estudos empíricos, procuram demonstrar que os investidores nem sempre se mantêm racionais ao tomarem decisões que envolvem riscos, conforme argumentava a Teoria Neoclássica de Finanças. Este trabalho tem como objetivo contextualizar o recente campo de estudo e replicar a investigação empírica do artigo seminal de Kahneman e Tversky (1979) que aborda a Teoria do Prospecto e que constitui a base de Finanças Comportamentais. Simultaneamente, serão comparados os resultados da pesquisa com os de Kahneman e Tversky (1979) com os obtidos nesse estudo. Os resultados encontrados nesta população específica mostram similaridade, e que mesmo com populações e períodos diferentes, os indivíduos tendem a se comportar de maneira, na maioria das vezes, contraria ao que argumentava a Teoria Neoclássica de Finanças / Basing on empirical studies, Behavioral Finance seek to demonstrate that investors not always have a rational posture when it comes to making decisions that might involve some sort of risk, according to Neoclassical Finance Theory. This paper aims to contextualize recent studies and respond to the empirical investigation on Kahneman and Tversky’s (1979) seminal article, which approaches The Prospect Theory and constitutes the basis for Behavioral Finance. The results of the investigation will simultaneously be compared to those of Kahneman and Tversky (1979). The results, which have been specifically found in this population, show that the results of the samples are similar, and even in different populations and different periods, individuals tend to behave, more often than not, just as opposed to the arguments of the Neoclassical Finance Theory

För att få bukt med lågkonjunkturen efter finanskrisen 2008 förde Sverige en expansiv penningpolitik. Även om Sverige tog sig ur krisen relativt smärtfritt följdes det av en period med deflation. Det ledde till att reporäntan 2015 för första gången sänktes under nollgränsen, och därmed tog den svenska penningpolitiken ett historiskt steg för att nå inflationsmålet. De låga räntorna har lett till att priserna på bostadsmarknaden har skenat iväg och de svenska hushållens skulder har ökat avsevärt där den genomsnittliga skuldkvoten är uppe i 343 procent. Från de penningpolitiska protokollen uttrycker Riksbanken en stor oro för denna utveckling och föreslår riktade åtgärder i bostads-, och skattepolitiken. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka effekterna av penningpolitiska åtgärder samt utvecklingen av bostadspriserna har haft på de svenska hushållen skulder. Genom en VAR-modell, Granger-orsakssamband, Impulse-response test och stresstester har denna studie kunnat påvisa och kartlägga vad som händer med de svenska hushållens skulder vid en eventuell räntehöjning. Resultaten visar att en räntechock mellan 3–5 procent minskar framtida skuldsättning, och ekonomin anpassar sig till jämvikt efter 5–8 perioder vilket representerar 15–24 månader. Den ger därmed ett starkt stöd för penningpolitikens kausalitet. Resultaten visar dessutom att det finns hushåll med låg disponibel inkomst som lever under existensminimum idag, och vid en räntehöjning överstiger några hushåll sitt existensminimum med nästan 50 procent. Studiens teoretiska del ger en förklaring om penningpolitikens jobb och dess flöde till hushåll och företag. Den tar även upp tidigare forskning som har undersökt marknadsbeteende hos hushåll.