Blockchain networks as constitutional and competitive polycentric orders

Institutional economists have analyzed permissionless blockchains as a novel institutional building block for voluntary economic exchange and distributed governance, with their unique protocol features such as automated contract execution, high levels of network and process transparency, and uniquely distributed governance. But such institutional analysis needs to be complemented by polycentric analysis of how blockchains change. We characterize such change as resulting from internal sources and external sources. Internal sources include constitutional (protocol) design and collective-choice processes for updating protocols, which help coordinate network participants and users. External sources include competitive pressure from other cryptocurrency networks. By studying two leading networks, Bitcoin and Ethereum, we illustrate how conceptualizing blockchains as competing and constitutional polycentric enterprises clarifies their processes of change.

An Organisational Study of the Free Kindergarten and Playcentre Movements in New Zealand

<p>The free kindergarten and playcentre organisations were subjects of case studies for an examination of strategic choice processes in voluntary organisations, using an open-systems theoretical framework. The patterns of strategic choices in each movement, over time, were described; then four recent decision processes and their consequences analysed. The data about the strategic choice processes gathered by participant observation were validated by three small surveys: one of 138 parents of pre-school children, one of 62 free kindergarten and playcentre staff, and one of 162 playcentre and kindergarten volunteers. General conclusions are that the patterns of strategic choice processes both reflect and influence each organistion's structure and functioning. Both voluntary organisations are constrained from making strategic choices which would satisfy the demands of prospective clientele who desire new forms of early childhood education services – the playcentre movement is constrained by its ideology and its method of delivering pre-school education via parent participation in all aspects of the organisation; and the kindergarten movement is constrained by the accumulation of many rules which inhibit the organisation's ability to adapt to changing social conditions. The playcentre organisation's pattern of decision making has been ahead of its time in the extent of members' participation, and so also has it been with its dual education programme – children and parents learning together; but the kindergarten organisation's children's programme – children and parents learning together; but the kindergarten oganisation's children's programme is better matched with the greater demand for kindergarten pre-school education.</p>

An Organisational Study of the Free Kindergarten and Playcentre Movements in New Zealand

<p>The free kindergarten and playcentre organisations were subjects of case studies for an examination of strategic choice processes in voluntary organisations, using an open-systems theoretical framework. The patterns of strategic choices in each movement, over time, were described; then four recent decision processes and their consequences analysed. The data about the strategic choice processes gathered by participant observation were validated by three small surveys: one of 138 parents of pre-school children, one of 62 free kindergarten and playcentre staff, and one of 162 playcentre and kindergarten volunteers. General conclusions are that the patterns of strategic choice processes both reflect and influence each organistion's structure and functioning. Both voluntary organisations are constrained from making strategic choices which would satisfy the demands of prospective clientele who desire new forms of early childhood education services – the playcentre movement is constrained by its ideology and its method of delivering pre-school education via parent participation in all aspects of the organisation; and the kindergarten movement is constrained by the accumulation of many rules which inhibit the organisation's ability to adapt to changing social conditions. The playcentre organisation's pattern of decision making has been ahead of its time in the extent of members' participation, and so also has it been with its dual education programme – children and parents learning together; but the kindergarten organisation's children's programme – children and parents learning together; but the kindergarten oganisation's children's programme is better matched with the greater demand for kindergarten pre-school education.</p>

Search for solutions, learning, simulation, and choice processes in suicidal behavior

Suicide may be viewed as an unfortunate outcome of failures in decision processes. Such failures occur when the demands of a crisis exceed a person’s capacity to (i) search for options, (ii) learn and simulate possible futures, and (iii) make advantageous value-based choices. Can individual-level decision deficits and biases drive the progression of the suicidal crisis? Our overview of the evidence on this question is informed by clinical theory and grounded in reinforcement learning and behavioral economics. Cohort and case-control studies provide strong evidence that limited cognitive capacity and particularly impaired cognitive control are associated with suicidal behavior, imposing cognitive constraints on decision-making. We conceptualize suicidal ideation as an element of impoverished consideration sets resulting from a search for solutions under cognitive constraints and mood-congruent Pavlovian influences, a view supported by mostly indirect evidence. More compelling is the evidence of impaired learning in people with a history of suicidal behavior. We speculate that an inability to simulate alternative futures using one’s model of the world may undermine alternative solutions in a suicidal crisis. The hypothesis supported by the strongest evidence is that the selection of suicide over alternatives is facilitated by a choice process undermined by randomness. Case-control studies using gambling tasks, armed bandits and delay discounting support this claim. Future experimental studies will need to uncover real-time dynamics of choice processes in suicidal people. In summary, the decision process framework sheds light on neurocognitive mechanisms that facilitate the progression of the suicidal crisis.

Let's Give ‘em Something to Talk About

Rural students are more likely to complete their high school diploma but less likely than urban or suburban students to enroll in college. This is in part due to exposure to college and social capital, particularly differential access to social networks including individuals with college degrees. Schools can play a role in bridging the social capital gap as school teachers and counselors are individuals with college degrees who live in and near rural communities. In this vein, teachers and counselors can inspire the college aspirations of rural students, a prerequisite for student engagement in college choice processes.

Consumer Choicemaking and Choicelessness in Hyperdigital Marketspaces

Technologies, especially Internet-based digital ones, are reshaping choice processes – actual considerations and actions, as well as perceptions of these – in massive, often fundamental, ways. In this paper, our goal is to explore choice processes in general, and especially choice processes in hyperdigital marketspaces (i.e., with massively, pervasively interconnected things) with examples drawn from U.S. macro consumption contexts. We start with a short review of discourses on choice and choicelessness and then shift to the emerging era of technology-shaped choice processes that are especially observable in contemporary hyperdigital marketspaces. For the increasingly large swaths of market segments that consume, indeed live, digitally, we find deft symbolic sublimations and inversions happening, wherein manipulation is perceived as autonomy enhancing.