Contingent Decisions Research Articles

Urban–rural migration in Germany: A decision in favour of ‘the rural’ or against ‘the urban’?

For many years, the debate on internal migration in Germany focused on rural out-migration. Since the early 2000s, large cities have had positive migration balances. Almost unnoticed, however, in the early 2010s the patterns of internal migration started to shift towards rural locations. It was only the COVID-19 pandemic that drew attention to these changing tendencies and the apparent new appreciation of rural living.In this paper, we will first shed light on the changes in internal migration between 2000 and 2021. We divide this period into three phases and show that the overall pattern of population centralisation transformed into a process of decentralisation. This trend further intensified during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondly, based on a German-wide population survey, we present findings on the reasons why households moved from urban to rural areas between mid-2015 and mid-2020, with personal, employment-related and housing-related reasons being the most relevant. To better understand urban-rural migration (or ‘counterurbanisation’), we pay particular attention to how respondents experienced cities and urban housing markets and which residential characteristics they ascribed to the rural destination. We show that urban-rural migration is a multifaceted decision in which the structural impediments of urban housing markets lacking affordable housing play a relevant part. In conclusion, we argue that research on urban-rural migration needs to more systematically pursue the idea of a complex and contingent decision that is driven by both structural factors and personal preferences. Extending the long-standing counterurbanisation debate beyond a mere residential choice for ‘the rural’ is all the more important to adequately interpret future findings on post-pandemic patterns of internal migration.

Project Risk Management Practices and Performance of Construction Projects: A Case of Horizon Construction in Kigali, Rwanda

The general objective was to examine the effect of project risk management on performance of construction of rehabilitation house construction in Kigali, Rwanda. The specific objectives were; to determine effect of project risk assessment, project risk base decision and project contingency decision on performance of commercial rehabilitation in Kigali. Working on that topic would provide a better way to large-scale construction projects. Other scholars who would be interested to work in the same field. The study used relevant theories such as risk management and risk assessment theories. This research used a descriptive study variables, indicators and measurement. A correlation study design was used to establish the association between variables and regression effect size for each specific objectives. The study targeted 180 staffs of Horizon Construction.  A sample of 125 respondents determined using Yamane formula participated in the study process. The sample size was chosen using simple random and purposive sampling techniques. The study collected data using questionnaire and interview guide. The researcher study data using a computer based software known statistical product and service solutions to 26.0 to generate descriptive and inferential statistics. Qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis through themes and subthemes. Findings show that 57.3% show a disagreement with the analysis of risk was the focus at rehabilitation houses construction. Estimating risk given to respondents where 68.3% a positive agreement with the statement. Review technique was agreed by 85.5%. The study discovered that after having an interview with the rehabilitation houses construction. The study results show that 59.3 at a mean of 3.63 and standard deviation of 1.135 demonstrated an agreement that Horizon Construction applied managing change orders, 66.7% evidence that Horizon Construction has poorly written contact. Moreover, 63.4% accepted that the statement that Horizon Construction felt that all customers were given a time of allocation of decision and 65.4 agreed that the Horizon Construction prepared how they are managing decision with a mean of 4.18 and standard deviation of 1.14. Findings reiterate that 56.8% accepted that program management, 57.8% indicated that Horizon Construction was the implementation a mean  of 4.13 and standard deviation  of 1.37, 74.0% confirmed the used of program improvement with a mean  of 1.85 and standard deviation  of 1.28. The study recommends that the need of careful project risk management or availing the supervisor of construction work to be sure with the completion of project on time with timely. Result will minimize the effect of challenges and seizure of change that appear. The study proposed the Horizon  Ltd to avail supervisory activities toward construction project or being sure that managing risks should comprise the preventive techniques or meeting the due date and effective use of resources. Benefits of risk management in projects are huge. Keywords: Project Risk Management Practice, Risk Base Decision, Contingency Decision, Performance of Construction, Construction of Rehabilitation Houses

Modeling Contingent Decision Behavior: A Bayesian Nonparametric Preference-Learning Approach

We propose a preference-learning algorithm for uncovering Decision Makers’ (DMs’) contingent evaluation strategies in the context of multiple criteria sorting. We assume the preference information in the form of holistic assignment examples derived from the analysis of alternatives’ performance vectors and textual descriptions. We characterize the decision policies using a mixture of threshold-based, value-driven preference models and associated latent topics. The latter serve as the stimuli underlying the contingency in decision behavior. Such a probabilistic model is constructed by using a flexible and nonparametric Bayesian framework. The proposed method adopts a hierarchical Dirichlet process as the prior so that a group of DMs can share a countably infinite number of contingent models and topics. For all DMs, it automatically identifies the components representing their evaluation strategies adequately. The posterior is summarized by using the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo sampling method. We demonstrate the method’s practical usefulness in a real-world recruitment problem considered by a Chinese IT company. We also compare the approach with counterparts that use a single preference model, implement the parametric framework, or consider each DM’s preferences individually. The results indicate that our approach performs favorably in both interpreting DMs’ contingent decision behavior and recommending decisions on new alternatives. Furthermore, the approach’s performance and robustness are investigated through a computational experiment involving real-world data sets. History: Accepted by Ram Ramesh, Area Editor for Data Science and Machine Learning. Funding: J. Liu received financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 72071155 and 71701160]. M. Kadziński received financial support from the Polish National Science Center under the SONATA BIS project [Grant DEC-2019/34/E/HS4/00045]. X. Liao received financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 71872144]. Supplemental Material: The software that supports the findings of this study is available within the paper and its Supplemental Information ( https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/suppl/10.1287/ijoc.2023.1292 ) as well as from the IJOC GitHub software repository ( https://github.com/INFORMSJoC/2021.0328 ) at ( http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7608750 ).

Addressing Shortcomings in Contingency Standards of Care

Addressing Shortcomings in Contingency Standards of Care

Suboptimal foraging theory: How inaccurate predictions and approximations can make better models of adaptive behavior.

Optimal foraging theory (OFT) is based on the ecological concept that organisms select behaviors that convey future fitness, and on the mathematical concept of optimization: finding the alternative that provides the best value of a fitness measure. As implemented in, for example, state-based dynamic modeling, OFT is powerful for one key problem of modern ecology: modeling behavior as a tradeoff among competing fitness elements such as growth, risk avoidance, and reproductive output. However, OFT is not useful for other modern problems such as representing feedbacks within systems of interacting, unique individuals: When we need to model foraging by each of many individuals that interact competitively or synergistically, optimization is impractical or impossible-there are no optimal behaviors. For such problems we can, however, still use the concept of future fitness to model behavior by replacing optimization with less precise (but perhaps more realistic) techniques for ranking alternatives. Instead of simplifying the systems we model until we can find optimal behavior, we can use theory based on inaccurate predictions, coarse approximations, and updating to produce good behavior in more complex and realistic contexts. This so-called state- and prediction-based theory (SPT) can, for example, produce realistic foraging decisions by each of many unique, interacting individuals when growth rates and predation risks vary over space and time. Because SPT lets us address more natural complexity and more realistic problems, it is more easily tested against more kinds of observation and more useful in management ecology. A simple foraging model illustrates how SPT readily accommodates complexities that make optimization intractable. Other models use SPT to represent contingent decisions (whether to feed or hide, in what patch) that are tradeoffs between growth and predation risk, when both growth and risk vary among hundreds of patches, vary unpredictably over time, depend on characteristics of the individuals, are subject to feedbacks from competition, and change over the daily light cycle. Modern ecology demands theory for tradeoff behaviors in complex contexts that produce feedbacks; when optimization is infeasible, we should not be afraid to use approximate fitness-seeking methods instead.

Valuation of compound real options for co-investment in residential battery systems

The process of evaluating investments by electricity utilities to subsidize residential battery installations in distribution networks is challenging, because finding efficient investment plans involves reasoning over various sources of uncertainty and consideration of different sizing, location and timing options. This work proposes a novel financial framework using real options valuation (ROV) to solve the optimal investment problem for subsidizing residential battery installations, considering compound options including the option to delay the investment and its subsequent option (expand). We incorporate random variations in PV generation and load behaviour, making use of Monte Carlo (MC) power flow analysis that incorporates battery scheduling profiles. Specifically, the ROV framework solves stochastic power flow analysis with battery scheduling in a forward-looking MC model, and determines the optimal plan for executing the options that maximize the investment value using backward induction over all MC paths. However, this approach to MC becomes computationally prohibitive when battery operational profiles are generated by optimization-based home energy management. To reduce the computational burden, we use policy function approximation to provide fast battery operational profiles, drawing on machine learning methods that reduce MC computation time by 95%. Compared to standard financial analysis, the proposed model allows ROV to capture all uncertainties while allowing utilities to make contingent decisions to maximize the benefits from subsidizing residential battery storage.

Causes, Contingency and Freedom: A Reply to Anscombe, Mumford and Anjum

This paper takes Anscombe, Mumford and Anjum as key interlocutors for an exploration of the causality involved in our understanding of free will. Anscombe tried to disentangle causality from necessary determination in order to make room for free will, and a first section points to the historical and theological background of this entanglement. However, what is also crucially at stake is the relation between time and causality whereby this paper advocates a shift from a diachronic to a synchronic conception. This synchronic conception of the contingency of free will is then argued to be superior to Mumford and Anjum’s dispositional modality in providing the libertarian desiderata of alternative possibilities and ultimate authorship, and gives us a picture of a permanent causal tug-of-war in the present. The final section then points out that this puts persons and their contingent decisions partly in the role of being an explanans for, rather than an explanandum of, any current contingent state of affairs.

Segnico, simbolico, politico

This article explores some central features of the theory of signification put forward by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, taking into account both Hegemony and Socialist Strategy and some further reflections developed by Laclau alone. Through the analysis of the concepts of discourse, empty signifier, dislocation and antagonism it is argued that, in the discourse-theoretical framework, the Saussurean “arbitrariness of the sign” can be limited only through the symbolic unification of a discourse and the drawing of antagonistic frontiers, and that these latter processes rest on contingent decisions, that is operations pertaining to the order of the political.

Tactical Jus ad bellum: The Practice and Ethics of Military Designations of Friend and Foe

ABSTRACT The just-war framework neatly distinguishes between jus ad bellum, the criteria that address political leaders’ decisions for waging war, and jus in bello, the criteria that address soldiers’ conduct during war. Yet developments in the empirical science of civil wars, the U.S. military’s recent preference that ground-level soldiers exercise initiative and autonomy, and the wartime experiences of U.S. soldiers fighting in the twenty-first century converge to reveal an unappreciated overlap between jus ad bellum and jus in bello. I examine three firsthand accounts of service in Iraq and Afghanistan to show how military leaders’ contingent decisions – insofar as they choose whom to marginalize politically, befriend as allies in combat, and oppose as mortal enemies – are susceptible, theoretically if not yet practically, of jus ad bellum critique. Drawing on the work of Avishai Margalit, Michael Walzer, and James Murphy, I then argue that military designations of friend and foe implicate ethicists, political authorities, and military educators in a network of obligations. Ethicists must discern how to evaluate commanders’ political decisions, polities must prepare soldiers for political work, and military educators must teach the relevant scholarship. This argument has significance for regnant conceptions of military expertise and military education.

The 1982 Voting Rights Act Extension as a “Critical Juncture”: Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, and Republican Party-Building

AbstractRepublican support for the 1982 Voting Rights Act (VRA) extension is a puzzle for scholars of racial policy coalitions. The extension contained provisions that were manifestly antithetical to core principles of the “color-blind” policy alliance said to dominate the GOP. Recent scholarship has explained this puzzling decision by arguing that conservatives were confident that the VRA's most objectionable provisions could be undone by the federal bureaucracy and judiciary, while absolving Republicans of the blame of being against voting rights. This article suggests that the picture is more complicated. Applying the concept of “critical junctures” to the 1982 VRA extension, the article highlights the importance of actors’ contingent decisions and reveals a wider range of choices available to political entrepreneurs than has been conventionally understood. Highlighting differing views within the Reagan administration, this article also identifies a wider range of reasons why Republicans supported the act's extension, including career ambition, party-building, policy agenda advancement, and genuine commitment, rather than simply a defensive stance as implied by recent histories.

When Does Backsliding Lead to Breakdown? Uncertainty and Opposition Strategies in Democracies at Risk

In recent decades, prominent national leaders like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez gained power through democratic institutions, only to undermine those institutions once in office as part of a broader effort to consolidate authoritarian power. Yet attempts at “executive aggrandizement” have failed in other countries, with varying consequences for democratic institutions. We develop an agency-based perspective to enhance the understanding of aggrandizement and to explain when it results in democratic breakdown. Relying on comparative case studies of five countries—Bolivia, Ecuador, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela—our analysis suggests that the contingent decisions of opposition actors during the process of aggrandizement have a significant effect on regime outcomes. Irregular opposition attempts to remove incumbents from office, which are especially likely after electoral defeats, contribute to democratic breakdown. More moderate responses to aggrandizement, on the other hand, help the opposition actors to buy time until the next election, hence offering the possibility for democratic survival.

Contingent Decision of Corporate Environmental Responsibility Based on Uncertain Economic Policy

Using 522 nonfinancial listed companies on the Chinese A-share Market during 2008–2016 as the sample, this paper studies the discretion of corporations to fulfill their environmental responsibilities in the face of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) through a panel regression model and a panel quantile regression model. Additionally, the sample is classified and the heterogeneity is analyzed based on the equity nature, the financing constraints and the economic region in which the corporations are located. The conclusions are as follows. First, faced with EPU, the corporations are willing to actively undertake environmental responsibilities, but their marginal propensity to these responsibilities shows a downward trend. Second, under the premise of EPU, the decision-making behavior of different types of corporations to fulfill their environmental responsibilities is heterogeneous, which is embodied in the equity nature, financing constraints and economic region. Third, through the stepwise regression method, this paper further studies the impact mechanism, and finds that the enterprise’s leverage ratio plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between EPU and environmental responsibility of nonfinancial corporations. Our paper provides important policy implications for the government. In the process of requiring corporations to fulfill their environmental responsibilities, relevant government organizations should fully consider the impact of EPU on the corporations’ development, and the level of environmental responsibilities should be controlled based on the type of the corporation. We further suggest that the requirement should be imposed on the corporations to disclose high-quality and reliable environmental protection information. Finally, we recommend that the corporations should adhere to the route of sustainable development.

Contingent trade-off decisions with feedbacks in cyclical environments: testing alternative theories

Abstract Many animals make contingent decisions, such as when and where to feed, as trade-offs between growth and risk when these vary not only with activity and location but also 1) in cycles such as the daily light cycle and 2) with feedbacks due to competition. Theory can assume an individual decides whether and where to feed, at any point in the light cycle and under any new conditions, by predicting future conditions and maximizing an approximate measure of future fitness. We develop four such theories for stream trout and evaluate them by their ability to reproduce, in an individual-based model, seven patterns observed in real trout. The patterns concern how feeding in four circadian phases—dawn, day, dusk, and night—varies with predation risk, food availability, temperature, trout density, physical habitat, day length, and circadian cycles in food availability. We found that theory must consider the full circadian cycle: decisions at one phase must consider what happens in other phases. Three theories that do so could reproduce almost all the patterns, and their ability to let individuals adapt decisions over time produced higher average fitness than any fixed behavior cycle. Because individuals could adapt by selecting among habitat patches as well as activity, multiple behaviors produced similar fitness. Our most successful theories base selection of habitat and activity at each phase on memory of survival probabilities and growth rates experienced 1) in the three previous phases of the current day or 2) in each phase of several previous days.

Life Course and Gender: Unpacking Women’s Thoughts About Access to the Superintendency

Abstract The current study utilizes feminist life course theory to examine the perspectives of women who have aspired or have entered into the superintendency in the United States. Life course theory suggests that our choices about careers are often founded upon “role histories” - near instantaneous responses to the social cues of our external world. Consequently, it offers opportunity to understand how patterns of socialization may impact real-life decisions over career possibilities (and impossibilities) and the historical conditions in which career decisions are made. Using survey responses from current and aspiring female superintendents (n=133), we engaged in descriptive statistical analyses. These findings were further contextualized through the four principles of life course theory, historical time and place, timing in lives, linked lives, and human agency. Our findings indicate women’s perspectives on the accessibility of the superintendency have shifted as narratives around women’s executive leadership roles have also changed. Importantly, the women in this study view accessibility to the superintendency as a largely contingent decision - a strategic, individual-level assessment focusing on the favorability of district work conditions to their success as leaders. Simultaneously, we see where issues of social networking, leadership “tapping”, and district “fit” emerge as normative expectations for accessing leadership roles as well as the preferred conditions upon which such choices are made. This reflects an encouraging perspective shift in which women are focusing less on “feasibility” than on “fit”. . Recommendations for practice are provided.

Managing language issue in second language storytelling

Abstracts Conversational storytelling involves producing multiple turns that are sequenced consecutively to form a connected whole. Producing a connected story is a challenging task for second language (L2) speakers because their language use may generate repairs of various kinds. In this regard, L2 tellers have the dual obligation of moving their stories forward while managing language issues that may interrupt the progress of their telling. The present study was designed to trace how language issues are handled during L2 storytelling and what relevance this has on the topical themes of the stories-in-progress. The data were taken from two corpora in which nonnative speakers of English engaged in storytelling sessions. The findings revealed the diverse ways in which language issues are exposed or embedded through repair sequences. While tellers’ uncertainty regarding language use often prompts repairs, these repairs are subject to their contingent decisions to resume their stories. This study provides insight into how language moments are configured into storytelling sequencing, a topic that has received limited attention in applied linguistics.

Romantic Disciplinarity and the Rise of the Algorithm

Scholars in both digital humanities and media studies have noted an apparent disconnect between computation and the interpretive methods of the humanities. Alan Liu has argued that literary scholars employing digital methods encounter a “meaning problem” due to the difficulty of reconciling algorithmic methods with interpretive ones. Conversely, the media scholar Friedrich Kittler has questioned the adequacy of hermeneutics as a means of studying computers. This paper argues that that this disconnect results from a set of contingent decisions made in both humanistic and mathematical disciplines in the first half of the nineteenth century that delineated, with implications that continue to resonate in the present day, which aspects of human activity would come to be formalized in algorithms and which would not. I begin with a discussion of Nicolas de Condorcet, who attempted, at the height of the 1789 revolution, to turn algebra into a universal language; his work, I argue, exemplifies the form of algorithmic thinking that existed before the Romantic turn. Next, I discuss William Wordsworth’s arguments about the relationship of poetry and science. While Wordsworth is sometimes viewed as a critic of science, I argue that his polemic is specifically targeted at highly politicized projects like Condorcet’s that sought to supplant existing modes of thought with scientific rationality. Finally, I demonstrate the importance of Romantic thought for George Boole, creator of the logic system that would eventually form the basis of digital electronics. The reason Boole was able to succeed where Condorcet had failed, I argue, was that Romantic notions of culture enabled him to reconcile a mechanical view of mathematical reasoning with an organic view of the development of meaning—a dichotomy that remains a key assumption of computer interfaces in the twenty-first century.

Are all innovation modes beneficial to firms’ innovation performance? New findings from an emerging market

Purpose This paper aims to examine the influence of individual and combined effects of the mode focused on scientific and technological-based innovation (STI) and the mode based on learning by doing, by using and by interacting (DUI) on firms’ innovation performance and whether information technology (IT) moderates the relation between different innovation modes and firms’ innovation performance. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual model linking innovation modes, IT (including IT infrastructure and the frequency of IT usage) and firms’ innovation performance was developed, and the proposed hypotheses were tested empirically using World Bank’s micro survey data collected from manufacturing firms in an emerging market (China). Findings The results show that individually both STI mode of innovation and DUI mode of innovation have a significant positive effect on firms’ innovative performance, whereas the combined STI and DUI mode of innovation has a negative impact. IT infrastructure moderates the relation between STI (or STI and DUI) mode of innovation and firms’ innovation performance, while the frequency of IT usage has no moderating effects on the relationship between any kind of innovation modes and firms’ innovation performance. Research limitations/implications Although some results are quite different from what is expected, these are insightful for both academics and policymakers. The use of cross-sectional data has its limitations. Therefore, future studies based on longitudinal data should be conducted. This study points toward the need to conduct the meta-analysis to better explain the existing inconsistencies in the findings of relevant quantitative studies. Practical implications This study provides firm managers with practical implications. The conclusions of this study imply that the impact of the combined STI and DUI mode of innovation is likely to be contextual, so firms should make contingent decisions on whether to engage in STI mode of innovation and DUI mode of innovation simultaneously according to their own organizational conditions. Moreover, face-to-face contacts are particularly important when a firm engages in DUI mode of innovation. In addition, the focus of IT strategy of firms engaged in STI mode of innovation should be on perfecting their IT infrastructure rather than increasing the frequency of IT usage. Originality/value This paper provides new evidence for the relation between business innovation modes and firms’ innovation performance, and it is one of the few empirical studies that focus on emerging markets. More importantly, this paper proposes a persuasive explanation framework for understanding the heterogeneous impacts of the combined STI and DUI mode of innovation on firms’ innovation performance. This is the first study that examines the moderating effect of IT on the relationship between business innovation modes and a firm’s innovation performance.

Spatiotemporal and deterioration assessment of water main failures

AbstractMany water utilities are experiencing high failure rates in their drinking water distribution water mains, and the consequence of these failures can be severe in terms of social, economic, environmental, and reputational outcomes. This study analyzed clustering‐based spatiotemporal failure patterns in six selected water service areas in California. Water main failure hot spot zones that are of concern were identified, and a time‐dependent Poisson process was further used to assess associated deterioration patterns. These findings can help water utilities make more informed strategic, tactical, operational, and contingency decisions regarding asset management activities in the global pursuit of providing higher levels of service to customers.

A novel optimization model based on game tree for multi-energy conversion systems

Well-designed multi-energy conversion systems have the potential to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. Based on the literature review and the typical energy flow network of multi-energy conversion systems, the necessity of stakeholders' taking part in multi-energy projects have been emphasized. Considering of different stakeholders have different interest demand and theirs' decision-making behaviors interact with each other, both the final results and decision process are important for stakeholders in multi-energy system planning. Game analysis, which is an analysis method for the conveying scheme evolution in different situations, was proposed to descript the complex relationship between stakeholders' profits and technical schemes. A hierarchical game playing scheme and a simplified multi-energy system optimization method were put forward to assist stakeholders to participate in techno-economic analysis process. Annual equivalent full capacity operation time and hourly earnings of each energy conversion technology are used to calculate returns on investment. The total revenues and every stakeholders' economic returns in different situations (energy price) and technical proposals can be acquired and compared. The proposed method is also illustrated and verified along with a case study. Results indicated that all parties can make contingent decisions under multi-partner negotiation with the assist of game analysis method.

How pre- and postcopulatory sexual selection influence male mating decisions in a promiscuous species

When females mate multiply, male reproductive success depends on both pre- and postcopulatory processes, including female choice and sperm competition. However, these processes can favour different mating tactics in males. Here we used the Trinidadian guppy, Poecilia reticulata, system to understand how this conflict is resolved. We asked whether knowledge of recent female mating history leads males to adjust their mating effort with respect to the time devoted to mating activity, and the frequency and the sequence of mating tactics employed. To do this we quantified male mating behaviour in three competitive scenarios: (1) Single, when a focal male arrives near a single female and remains alone with her; (2) First, when a focal male is joined by a rival male; and (3) Second, when a focal male arrives after a rival male. We hypothesized that males adjust their behaviour based on arrival order. If female sequential mate choice is the main process shaping male mating behaviours (favouring First males in guppies), males should avoid competition and invest most when Single. Alternatively, if last-male sperm precedence is the major driver of decision making, males should invest more in mating attempts in the Second scenario. Greatest investment when First implies an intermediate strategy. We found that order of arrival influenced mating decisions with most mating activity during the First rather than the Single and Second scenarios. This result suggests that both pre- and postcopulatory processes influence mating investment, and that individual males make contingent decisions to maximize both mating and fertilization success.