Introduction to the Special Issue “Dynamic Decision-Making in Controlled Experiments”

Abstract

first_page settings Order Article Reprints Font Type: Arial Georgia Verdana Font Size: Aa Aa Aa Line Spacing:    Column Width:    Background: Open AccessEditorial Introduction to the Special Issue “Dynamic Decision-Making in Controlled Experiments” by Andreas Größler * and Hendrik Stouten Institute for Management Research—System Dynamics Group, Radboud University, The Netherlands * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Systems 2015, 3(2), 60-61; https://doi.org/10.3390/systems3020060 Received: 11 June 2015 / Revised: 11 June 2015 / Accepted: 11 June 2015 / Published: 18 June 2015 (This article belongs to the Special Issue Dynamic Decision Making in Controlled Experiments) Download Download PDF Download PDF with Cover Download XML Download Epub Versions Notes While research so far has mostly focused on static (one-shot) decisions, it is obvious that many (or even most) crucial real-life decisions are dynamic. Continuous planning and implementation processes in companies, resource exploitation and regeneration policies in mining, agriculture, and fisheries, and economic and environmental steering by policy makers are prime examples of important dynamic decisions. Decision tasks are dynamic whenever decisions made at time t alter the state of a system and, thus, the information that conditions decisions that have to be made at time t + 1. To make such repeated decisions, ideally, decision-makers monitor their decisions’ outcomes and adapt further decisions to the current (or an expected future) state of the system. In fact, the decision-maker and the system are entwined in feedback loops whereby decisions alter the state of the system, giving rise to new information and leading to new decisions. Besides the effects of decisions on the state of the system, autonomous changes are sometimes also experienced by decision-makers, based on external influences on the system. This Special Issue aims to provide an account of the current state of research in dynamic decision-making, with a focus on laboratory experimental studies and articles laying the foundations for such experimental studies [1,2,3]. The ultimate goal of the individual papers, as well as the complete Special Issue, is to contribute to the development of a theory of dynamic decision-making, i.e., a theory that addresses the questions about the antecedents, mechanisms, and success factors of dynamic decision-making. In comparison to other journals, we aim for a quick procedure (the overall processing time from this announcement to the last papers published is one year; finalized papers will be published immediately online after their acceptance) and offer open access publication for all articles. We appreciate receiving contributions (as full articles—including revised conference papers, short communications or reviews) from many different fields of science: psychology, system dynamics, agent-based simulation, organization science, behavioral economics, neuro-sciences, and the wider systems sciences movement.Topics might include but are not limited to Conceptualizations of dynamic decision-making and dynamic decision-making environments.Description of experimental settings for investigating dynamic decision-making in various contexts; for instance, profit vs. not-for-profit organizations, short-term vs. long-term decisions, “autocratic” vs. “democratic” decisions.Development of relevant measures/measurement scales to be used in dynamic decision-making research (must include results of pilot testing).Description of simulators to be used in dynamic decision-making research (must include results of pilot testing).Experimental studies on various aspects of dynamic decision-making situations; for instance, stock-flow thinking, understanding of accumulations, effects of delays and non-linearities.Experimental studies on various aspects of decision-makers in dynamic settings; for instance, the role of personality, intelligence, motivation, education, culture.Broadening the dynamic decision-making research to cover group decision processes.Descriptions of research agendas to investigate dynamic decision-making in the longer term, including opportunities and issues for their implementation. ReferencesArango Aramburo, S.; Castañedo Azevedo, J.A.; Olaya Morales, Y. Laboratory experiments in the system dynamics field. Syst. Dynam. Rev. 2012, 28, 94–106. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]Gonzalez, C.; Dutt, V. A generic dynamic control task for behavioral research and education. Comput. Hum. Behav. 2011, 27, 1904–1914. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]Gonzalez, C. Decision support for real-time, dynamic decision-making tasks. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 2005, 96, 142–154. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] © 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Share and Cite MDPI and ACS Style Größler, A.; Stouten, H. Introduction to the Special Issue “Dynamic Decision-Making in Controlled Experiments”. Systems 2015, 3, 60-61. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems3020060 AMA Style Größler A, Stouten H. Introduction to the Special Issue “Dynamic Decision-Making in Controlled Experiments”. Systems. 2015; 3(2):60-61. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems3020060 Chicago/Turabian Style Größler, Andreas, and Hendrik Stouten. 2015. "Introduction to the Special Issue “Dynamic Decision-Making in Controlled Experiments”" Systems 3, no. 2: 60-61. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems3020060 Find Other Styles Article Metrics No No Article Access Statistics For more information on the journal statistics, click here. Multiple requests from the same IP address are counted as one view.