Is It Possible to Monetarily Quantify the Emotional Value Transferred by Companies and Organizations? An Emotional Accounting Proposal

Social accounting focuses on value transactions between organizations and their stakeholders; both market ones, where the value perceived by the different stakeholders is identified, and non-markets ones, where transactions are monetized at their fair value. There was long awareness of an emotional value translation, linked to the transfer of different products, services, remunerations, and incentives, regardless of whether they were market or non-market. Yet that emotional value seemed to be anchored in the field of psychology and managed to elude economic science. This study seeks to identify emotional value with consumer surplus and, by extension, of the other stakeholders in a value transfer process. This proposal allows the emotional value to be anchored in the micro-economy and allows it to be objectively calculated using a regression involving three elements: the market price, the fair value interval, and a perceived satisfaction score by the different stakeholders in the form of significant sampling. The result obtained not only allows Social Accounting to be complemented with emotional value, but it also facilitates its incorporation in the strategy to optimize the emotional value. Furthermore, it enables a quantification of the perceived subjective utility, which opens up a research path where some possible lines are clearly identified.

Motor response vigour and fixations reflect subjective preferences during intertemporal choice

Value-based decision-making is of central interest in cognitive neuroscience and psychology, as well as in the context of neuropsychiatric disorders characterised by decision-making impairments. Studies examining (neuro-)computational mechanisms underlying choice behaviour typically focus on participants' decisions. However, there is increasing evidence that option valuation might also be reflected in motor response vigour and eye movements, implicit measures of subjective utility. To examine motor response vigour and visual fixation correlates of option valuation in intertemporal choice, we set up a task where the participants selected an option by pressing a grip force transducer, simultaneously tracking fixation shifts between options. As outlined in our preregistration (https://osf.io/k6jct), we used hierarchical Bayesian parameter estimation to model the choices assuming hyperbolic discounting, compared variants of the softmax and drift diffusion model, and assessed the relationship between response vigour and the estimated model parameters. The behavioural data were best explained by a drift diffusion model specifying a non-linear scaling of the drift rate by the subjective value differences. Replicating previous findings (Green et al., 1997; Wagner et al., 2020a), we found a magnitude effect for temporal discounting, such that higher rewards were discounted less. This magnitude effect was further reflected in response vigour, such that stronger forces were exerted in the high vs. the low magnitude condition. Bayesian hierarchical linear regression further revealed higher grip forces, faster response times and a lower number of fixation shifts for trials with higher subjective value differences. Our data suggest that subjective utility or implicit valuation is reflected in response vigour during intertemporal choice. Taking into account response vigour might thus provide deeper insight into decision-making, reward valuation and maladaptive changes in these processes, e.g. in the context of neuropsychiatric disorders.

Uncertain Optimization of Discrete Supply Networks with Order Delivery Disruption and Risk Preference in the Postepidemic Era

Epidemic blockade leads to increased uncertainty and dynamic supply network disruption. This study considers an uncertain optimization of dynamic supply networks with risk preference and order delivery disruption. Taking the subjective utility of downstream enterprises as a reference point for the utility measurement of order delivery disruption and risk preference, this study constructs a biobjective optimization model with the goal of maximizing the downstream firm’s subjective utility and minimizing the manufacturer’s cost. The influence of each parameter in the downstream firm’s subjective utility function on the integrated optimization was analysed. The research found that the uncertain optimization model with the risk preference of downstream firms for order delivery disruption better controls the actual manufacturer’s order allocation and distribution problems when considering the downstream firms’ behaviour preference characteristics under bounded rationality. When allocating orders, manufacturers should consider that changes in order delivery disruption will cause changes in the subjective utility of downstream enterprises. In the process of multiperiod cooperation between manufacturers and downstream firms, they can obtain downstream firm risk preferences through repeated investigations.

A Sensitivity Analysis of a Certain Mathematical Model of Expert Evaluation of Investment Projects

The paper presents a sensitivity analysis of the developed mathematical model of expert evaluation of investment projects. Processes of investment projects implementations are analyzed as decision-making processes under uncertainty. The mathematical model under study evaluates the effectiveness of an investment project using the NPV index. This index is considered a random variable and can be estimated by an investor as a segment [NPV1; NPV2J. The proposed mathematical model utilizes the probability density function of NPV in the form of Pearson curves of the first type. Another peculiar feature of the mathematical model is utilization of the subjective utility function in decision making of whether to invest or not to invest in some project. The subjective utility function considers individual characteristics of investors and their decision making under risks and uncertainty. Perception of additional information by investors changes depending on their attitude toward risk and missed opportunities and thus reduces uncertainty in decision making. The paper studies this step in detail and provides some conclusions proving the correctness of the developed mathematical model.

Quantum decision corrections for the neuroeconomics of irrational movement control and goal attainment

Quantum decision theory corrects categorical and propositional logic pathologies common to classic statistical goal-oriented reasoning, such as rational neuroeconomics-based optimal foraging. Within this ecosalient framework, motivation, perception, learning, deliberation, brain computation, and conjunctive risk-order errors may be understood for subjective utility judgments underlying either rational or irrational canonical decisions-actions used to choose, procure, and consume rewarding nutrition with variable fitness.

Costs and benefits of communicating vigor

Why do we run toward people we love, but only walk toward others? One reason is to let them know we love them. In this commentary, we elaborate on how subjective utility information encoded in vigor is read out by others. We consider the potential implications for understanding and modeling the link between movements and decisions in social environments.

Value Is a (Quantum) State

This work describes the fundamental features of value that have roots in modern physics. Contrary to the traditional view, we believe that value does not have a proper existence, neither as a physical substance nor as a subjective utility in rewards. Value is rather a probabilistic ‘state’, existing by the ‘superposition’ of its expectation and information states. Expectation drives towards the disclosure of information in value state, at which moment it collapses into consciousness. Although empirical experiments are missing, value and quantum states are essentially governed by the same common mechanisms.

Economizing as Exploring Valuations

This study deals with the building of a specific set of economic valuations throughout the work of French telephone engineers between 1880 and 1938. In so doing, it contributes to our understanding of the complex interplay between economization and valuation. Tracing the changing practices that facilitated a shift from valuation aimed at minimizing force losses to valuation aimed at assessing and enhancing subjective utility, economizing is considered as an epistemic process, through which managers, engineers and workers are exploring, representing and transforming the world. From saving work and minimizing losses to creating value, engineers went from evaluating (telling what is worth, within an economy of force, optimizing the ratio of losses over total work) to valorizing (framing value as possibly produced and not only saved, the production of utility). This new concern for valorization points to the development of new ideas on what could create economic value. In this process, the very acts of measuring, optimizing and calculating, appeared as both “subversive” and “subverted”.

Computational Methods in Problems of Subjective Assessment of Investment Decisions Effectiveness

The paper describes the implementation of investment projects under conditions of uncertainty. In the developed mathematical model, the effectiveness of an investment project is evaluated by the NPV index. This index is considered a random variable that can be estimated by an investor to within a segment [NPV1;NPV2]. The main difficulties of the decision-making process arise when the segment [NPV1;NPV2] includes zero value. In the developed model, we use the probability density function of NPV value in the form of Pearson curves of the first type. This paper discusses in detail some particular moments, which are to be taken into consideration while choosing a specific type of probability density function of NPV. The main element of the proposed model is the subjective utility function. Many questions regarding the usage of this function in practice are also extensively reviewed in this article. The main requirement for successful usage of the subjective utility function in real life is a well-calculated chapter of scenario analysis of an investment project. This chapter is present in almost all modern business plans. The practical application of the developed mathematical model improves the quality of decisions concerning the investment of funds into projects.