scholarly journals Chameleonic knowledge: a study of ex ante analysis in large infrastructure policy processes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Dorren ◽  
Wouter Van Dooren
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Knowledge Use ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Cost Overruns ◽  
Substantive Content ◽  
Infrastructure Policy ◽  
Decision Outcomes ◽  
Ex Ante

Using ex ante analysis to predict policy outcomes is common practice in the world of infra- structure planning. However, accounts of its uses and merits vary widely. Advisory agencies and government think tanks advocate this practice to prevent cost overruns, short-term decision-making and suboptimal choices. Academic studies on knowledge use, on the other hand, are critical of how knowledge can be used in decision making. Research has found that analyses often have no impact at all on decision outcomes or are mainly conducted to provide decision makers with the confidence to decide rather than with objective facts. In this paper, we use an ethnographic research design to understand how it is possible that the use of ex ante analysis can be depicted in such contradictory ways. We suggest that the substantive content of ex ante analysis plays a limited role in understanding its depictions and uses. Instead, it is the process of conducting an ex ante analysis itself that unfolds in such a manner that the analysis can be interpreted and used in many different and seemingly contradictory ways. In policy processes, ex ante analysis is like a chameleon, figuratively changing its appearance based on its environment.

scholarly journals Chameleonic knowledge: a study of ex ante analysis in large infrastructure policy processes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars Dorren ◽  
Wouter Van Dooren
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Knowledge Use ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Cost Overruns ◽  
Substantive Content ◽  
Infrastructure Policy ◽  
Decision Outcomes ◽  
Ex Ante

AbstractUsing ex ante analysis to predict policy outcomes is common practice in the world of infrastructure planning. However, accounts of its uses and merits vary widely. Advisory agencies and government think tanks advocate this practice to prevent cost overruns, short-term decision-making and suboptimal choices. Academic studies on knowledge use, on the other hand, are critical of how knowledge can be used in decision making. Research has found that analyses often have no impact at all on decision outcomes or are mainly conducted to provide decision makers with the confidence to decide rather than with objective facts. In this paper, we use an ethnographic research design to understand how it is possible that the use of ex ante analysis can be depicted in such contradictory ways. We suggest that the substantive content of ex ante analysis plays a limited role in understanding its depictions and uses. Instead, it is the process of conducting an ex ante analysis itself that unfolds in such a manner that the analysis can be interpreted and used in many different and seemingly contradictory ways. In policy processes, ex ante analysis is like a chameleon, figuratively changing its appearance based on its environment.

Desire and pleasure in choice

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-196
Author(s):  
Daniel A Newark
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Choice Models ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Object Learning ◽  
Decision Outcomes ◽  
Behavioral Mechanisms

This article considers how desire leads to pleasure through choice. A typical assumption of rational choice models is that decision makers experience pleasure or utility primarily when their desires are satisfied by decision outcomes. This article proposes that, in addition to desire yielding pleasure through its satisfaction, desiring can also yield pleasure directly during choice. Beyond the pleasures of getting what we want, there may be pleasures in the wanting. In particular, four psychological and behavioral mechanisms through which desire can yield pleasure during choosing are identified: imagining the desired object, learning about the desired object, constructing one’s self while clarifying the desired object, and pursuing the desired object. This said, although desire may, through these mechanisms, offer considerable immediate pleasure, this article posits that indulging these pleasures tends to foster subsequent disappointment with decision outcomes. The article concludes by considering the implications for decision making of this expanded view of desire’s relationship to pleasure in choice.

Beyond the Gambling Paradigm: Internal Controllability in Decision-Making

2001 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduard Brandstätter ◽  
Herbert Schwarzenberger
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Personal Control ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Unrealistic Optimism ◽  
Decision Outcomes ◽  
Life Decisions

Much research within decision-making has used the standard gambling paradigm where decision outcomes depend only on chance. Many real life decisions, however simply personal control over decision outcomes. This paper addressed the question of how internal controllability influences decision-making. Internal controllability is assumed (i) to enhance unrealistic optimism and (ii) to result in a better cost:benefit ratio. Both tendencies support each other and predict an enhanced attractiveness for internal and controllable choice options. Participants read a scenario and made a decision afterwards. Results supported the prediction: decision-makers take the option they can personally control. This finding widens the narrow perspective inherent in much previous research based on the gambling paradigm.

scholarly journals Trusted Decision-Making: Data Governance for Creating Trust in Data Science Decision Outcomes

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Paul Brous ◽  
Marijn Janssen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Data Science ◽  
Low Voltage ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Data Governance ◽  
Science Project ◽  
Management Domain ◽  
First Case ◽  
Decision Outcomes

Organizations are increasingly introducing data science initiatives to support decision-making. However, the decision outcomes of data science initiatives are not always used or adopted by decision-makers, often due to uncertainty about the quality of data input. It is, therefore, not surprising that organizations are increasingly turning to data governance as a means to improve the acceptance of data science decision outcomes. In this paper, propositions will be developed to understand the role of data governance in creating trust in data science decision outcomes. Two explanatory case studies in the asset management domain are analyzed to derive boundary conditions. The first case study is a data science project designed to improve the efficiency of road management through predictive maintenance, and the second case study is a data science project designed to detect fraudulent usage of electricity in medium and low voltage electrical grids without infringing privacy regulations. The duality of technology is used as our theoretical lens to understand the interactions between the organization, decision-makers, and technology. The results show that data science decision outcomes are more likely to be accepted if the organization has an established data governance capability. Data governance is also needed to ensure that organizational conditions of data science are met, and that incurred organizational changes are managed efficiently. These results imply that a mature data governance capability is required before sufficient trust can be placed in data science decision outcomes for decision-making.

An Empirical Study of a Decision-Making Process Supported by Simulation in the Automotive Industry

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothé M. Sissoko ◽  
Marija Jankovic ◽  
Christiaan J. J. Paredis ◽  
Eric Landel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Automotive Industry ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Cost Overruns ◽  
Hierarchical Levels ◽  
Shed Light

The design process can be considered as series of decisions supported by modeling and simulation (M&S). Current developments aim at supporting this decision making with regard to increasing resources committed in the M&S process. To understand possible decision support, we conducted an empirical study in a car manufacturing company to map out the decision-making process during the development phase. A qualitative data analysis was performed to understand the difficulties and the needs expressed by decision makers. Industrial preliminary observations have shown that decisions regarding design issues are often postponed, causing iterations, and time and cost overruns in the development process. The study revealed that decisions are escalated to upper hierarchical levels as complexity and uncertainty increase and as the tradeoffs become impactful. A lack of knowledge about the M&S performance and limits, a lack of clarity due to design ambiguity, and uncertainty are more likely to cause iterations and delay. In addition, decision makers and stakeholders are sometimes unadvised of the influence of the decision under consideration on subsequent decisions and on the profit. These findings are interesting as they shed light in terms of decision supported needed in the future.

Outcomes of Political Decision Making

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus M. Weymiller ◽  
Christopher W. Larimer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Group Outcomes ◽  
Decision Outcomes ◽  
Primary Driver ◽  
Random Fluctuations

“Decision outcomes” refers to mass political behavior as well as decisions by elites in the policy arena. Such outcomes are naturally the product of the decision-making process, a process that has been informed considerably by research in areas outside of political science. Political and policy processes are less defined by rational responses to incoming information than by pre-existing cognitive biases favoring narratives, stories, and symbols. Thus, to accurately understand decision outcomes requires an interdisciplinary approach, and, indeed, the discipline of political science has increasingly incorporated insights from psychology, social psychology, sociology, behavioral economics, and other social and natural sciences. Decision outcomes may reflect the true preferences of decision-makers, but behavior and outcomes have also been shown to change dramatically depending on who knows (or will know) the decision. Considering decision outcomes as the dependent variable, several factors have been identified that consistently and significantly shape outcomes in the political and policy worlds. Political outcomes, such as voting (by citizens and elites), are often explained by focusing on party ID or partisanship, and for good reason, but there are also instances in which decision outcomes are better encapsulated by more localized factors or influences. Policy outcomes, on the other hand, are less easily defined or predicted. Emotional testimonies and random fluctuations affect whether an issue is acted upon by a legislative body. Attention to social context and a concern for fairness is a primary driver of decision outcomes in social situations. In particular, leader–follower dynamics and group outcomes are significantly affected by the process in which decisions are made.

scholarly journals Strategic decision-making under ambiguity: a new problem space and a proposed optimization approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1231-1251
Author(s):  
Richard J. Arend
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Strategic Decision Making ◽  
Optimization Approach ◽  
Problem Space ◽  
Competitive Environments ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Made In

AbstractThe existence of ambiguity presents a challenge to decision-makers as it eliminates the ability to apply standard optimization approaches, such as those based on calculating the objective expected values of alternative actions. In reality, ambiguity arises in most strategically important decisions in some form because of the genuine limits on the decision-maker’s rationality and on the information available about the alternatives and the future. To address that reality, we define such problems as strategic decision-making under ambiguity where choices over resource investments must be made in competitive environments where possible outcomes and their payoffs are known ex ante, but the probabilities of such outcomes are unknowable ex ante. We outline a multi-step, logical approach for addressing such problems in theory with the goal of providing an improved basis for practical decisions that should increase organizational performance.

A Bird in the Hand Isn’t Good for Long

2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Scherbaum ◽  
Simon Frisch ◽  
Maja Dshemuchadse
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
The Other ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Additional Time ◽  
Control Processes ◽  
Folk Wisdom ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract. Folk wisdom tells us that additional time to make a decision helps us to refrain from the first impulse to take the bird in the hand. However, the question why the time to decide plays an important role is still unanswered. Here we distinguish two explanations, one based on a bias in value accumulation that has to be overcome with time, the other based on cognitive control processes that need time to set in. In an intertemporal decision task, we use mouse tracking to study participants’ responses to options’ values and delays which were presented sequentially. We find that the information about options’ delays does indeed lead to an immediate bias that is controlled afterwards, matching the prediction of control processes needed to counter initial impulses. Hence, by using a dynamic measure, we provide insight into the processes underlying short-term oriented choices in intertemporal decision making.

Decision making based on intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations with additive approximate consistency

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 4041-4058
Author(s):  
Fang Liu ◽  
Xu Tan ◽  
Hui Yang ◽  
Hui Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Real Interval ◽  
Preference Relations ◽  
Intuitionistic Fuzzy ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Fuzzy Preference Relations ◽  
Novel Concept ◽  
Fuzzy Weights ◽  
Fuzzy Preference

Intuitionistic fuzzy preference relations (IFPRs) have the natural ability to reflect the positive, the negative and the non-determinative judgements of decision makers. A decision making model is proposed by considering the inherent property of IFPRs in this study, where the main novelty comes with the introduction of the concept of additive approximate consistency. First, the consistency definitions of IFPRs are reviewed and the underlying ideas are analyzed. Second, by considering the allocation of the non-determinacy degree of decision makers’ opinions, the novel concept of approximate consistency for IFPRs is proposed. Then the additive approximate consistency of IFPRs is defined and the properties are studied. Third, the priorities of alternatives are derived from IFPRs with additive approximate consistency by considering the effects of the permutations of alternatives and the allocation of the non-determinacy degree. The rankings of alternatives based on real, interval and intuitionistic fuzzy weights are investigated, respectively. Finally, some comparisons are reported by carrying out numerical examples to show the novelty and advantage of the proposed model. It is found that the proposed model can offer various decision schemes due to the allocation of the non-determinacy degree of IFPRs.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document