Fundamental Decisions Research Articles

Understanding, choosing and applying grounded theory: part 2.

A fundamental decision when planning a study is the selection of the most appropriate approach to the research. Researchers choosing grounded theory must consider which approach is best suited to for collecting and analysing data. To enable nurse researchers to choose and apply a grounded theory methodology, using a worked example to illustrate the main elements and considerations. Grounded theory provides a helpful framework to guide data collection and analysis, and to generate theory from the data. It can also be used to modify or advance existing theories. Neophyte researchers need to understand the jargon, technical language and specific requirements of grounded theory to use it to its capacity. This supports the correct application of their preferred approach to grounded theory, and continuity between the study's question, aims and methods. It takes time and effort to understand the different approaches of grounded theory, and to learn its rigorous standards. This paper offers guidance to nurse researchers by explaining fundamental decisions to be made when choosing and adopting a grounded theory methodology.

DECISÕES CORPORATIVAS EM GRUPO: UMA ABORDAGEM COMPORTAMENTAL

Important organizational decisions are commonly made within groups. Within financial institutions, it is not rare for credit concessions to be decided by committees. In the government sphere, fundamental decisions, such as defining the economy’s primary interest rate, are also made in collegiate. In large private companies, the board of directors is at the top of the organizational hierarchy and has the final word on investment strategies, financing, and mergers and acquisitions. However, the peculiarities of the group decision process are widely ignored in finance literature, which usually considers the group as if it were an individual. For example, studies in the field of behavioral corporate finance emphasize the cognitive processes and biases of the individual decision maker, but pay little attention to how these processes interact to make a group decision (For a literature review, see Baker & Wurgler, 2013). In this essay, I present, in a concise, selective manner, the current state of the emerging multidisciplinary discussion on the decision process in small groups and emphasize its behavioral aspects. First, I cover the advantages and difficulties of the group decision compared with the individual decision. Then, I present recent contributions indicating that the quality of group decisions depends on the context and on how small changes in the decision environment can have important consequences.

TREE AUTOMATA BASED ON COMPLETE RESIDUATED LATTICE-VALUED LOGIC: REDUCTION ALGORITHM AND DECISION PROBLEMS

In this paper, at first we define the concepts of response function and accessible states of a complete residuated lattice-valued (for simplicity we write $mathcal{L}$-valued) tree automaton with a threshold $c.$ Then, related to these concepts, we prove some lemmas and theorems that are applied in considering some decision problems such as finiteness-value and emptiness-value of recognizable tree languages. Moreover, we propose a reduction algorithm for $mathcal{L}$-valued tree automata with a threshold $c.$ The goal of reducing an $ mathcal{L}$-valued tree automaton is to obtain an $mathcal{L}$-valued tree automaton with reduced number of states%that all of its states are accessible all of which are accessible, in addition it recognizes the same language as the first one given. We compare our algorithm with some other algorithms in the literature. Finally, utilizing the obtained results, we consider some fundamental decision problems for $mathcal{L}$-valued tree automata including the membership-value, the emptiness-value, the finiteness-value, the intersection-value and the equivalence-value problems.

Saving Governance-By-Design

Author(s): Mulligan, DK; Bamberger, KA | Abstract: Governing through technology has proven irresistibly seductive. Everything from the Internet backbone to consumer devices employs technological to regulate behavior purposefully by promoting values such as privacy, security, intellectual property protection, innovation, and freedom of expression. Legal and policy scholarship has discussed individual skirmishes over the political impact of technical choices-from whether intelligence and police agencies can gain access to privately encrypted data to debates over digital rights management. But it has failed to come to terms with the reality that governance-by-design-the purposeful effort to use technology to embed values-is becoming a central mode of policymaking, and that our existing regulatory system fundamentally ill-equipped to prevent that phenomenon from subverting public governance. Far from being a panacea, governance-by-design has undermined important governance norms and chipped away at our voting, speech, privacy, and equality rights. In administrative agencies, courts, Congress, and international policy bodies, public discussions about embedding values in arise in a one-off, haphazard way, if at all. Constrained by their structural limitations, these traditional venues rarely explore the full range of other values that might affect, and often advance, a single value or occasionally pit one value against another. They seldom permit a meta-discussion about when and whether it appropriate to enlist technology in the service of values at all. And their policy discussions almost never include designers, engineers, and those that study the impact of socio-technical systems on values. When technology designed to regulate without such discussions-as it often is-the effects can be even more insidious. The resulting technology often hides government and corporate aims and the fundamental political decisions that have been made. In this way, governance-by-design obscures policy choices altogether. Such choices recede from the political as they become what is rather than what politics has determined ought to be. This Article proposes a detailed framework for saving governance-by-design. Through four case studies, the Article examines a range of recent battles over the values embedded in technology and makes the case that we are entering an era of policymaking by design war. These four battles, in turn, highlight four recurring dysfunctions of governance-by-design: First, governance-by-design overreaches by using overbroad technological fixes that lack the flexibility to balance equities and adapt to changing circumstances. Errors and unintended consequences result. Second, governance-by-design often privileges one or a few values while excluding other important ones, particularly broad human rights. Third, regulators lack the proper tools for governance-by-design. Administrative agencies, legislatures, and courts often lack technical expertise and have traditional structures and accountability mechanisms that poorly fit the job of regulating technology. Fourth, governance-by-design decisions that broadly affect the public are often made in private venues or in processes that make technological choices appear inevitable and apolitical. If we fail to develop new rules of engagement for governance-by-design, substantial and consequential policy choices will be made without effective public participation, purposeful debate, and relevant expertise. Important values will be sacrificed-sometimes inadvertently, because of bad decisions, and sometimes willfully, because decisions will be captured by powerful stakeholders. To address these critical issues, this Article proposes four rules of engagement. It constructs a framework to help decision makers protect values and democratic processes as they consider regulating by technology. Informed by the examination of skirmishes across the battlefields, as well as relevant Science and Technology Studies (STS), legal, design, and engineering literatures, this framework embraces four overarching imperatives: 1. Design with Modesty and Restraint to Preserve Flexibility 2. Privilege Human and Public Rights 3. Ensure Regulators Possess the Right Tools: Broad Authority and Competence, and Technical Expertise 4. Maintain the Publicness of Policymaking These rules of engagement offer a way toward surfacing and resolving value disputes in technological design, while preserving rather than subverting public governance and public values.

Contextualisation of the complexity in the selection of developing country outsourcees by developed country outsourcers

Outsourcing research has recognised that selecting the right offshore supplier (outsourcee) in low-cost distant developing countries is complex, but central to outsourcing success. More specifically, the combination of outsourcee contextual internal factors (e.g. capabilities) with outsourced-to country contextual external factors (e.g. political, legal, economic, socio-cultural) as two fundamental and interconnected decisions firms make when outsourcing remains an underexplored research gap. Therefore, through a rigorous three-tier qualitative approach we, firstly, develop a contextual Environmental Separation Index (ESI) decision tool to help outsourcing firms in making more informed decisions when selecting outsourcees and outsourcing locations. Secondly, we operationalise the ESI as intuitive and easy to use decision tool, yet with a provision to deliver a truly context proof outsourcee selection decision. Thirdly, we adopt a complexity theory lens to explain that narrowing the contextual outsourcer–outsourcee gap facilitates a mind-set shift in outsourcing relationships from hierarchies to networks and from controlling to empowering developing country outsourcees. We show from a complexity theory perspective how contextual separation gaps between developed country outsourcers and developing country outsourcees can be an effective way to grasp the evolutionary path of outsourcing relationships.

Swing for the Fences When the Economy is Slumping: Capital Investments in the Macro-Economic Context

Environment plays a powerful role in the strategic decisions of the firm, and a fundamental strategic decision faced by the firm in this environmental context is determining the amount of capital resources to invest in the business each year. Factors affecting the decision may include an assessment of how executives choose to invest capital among the different opportunities available to them, the geographic location where capital investments are made, and why the level of capital investment fits the current industry environment. But the decision of when to invest, an important strategic phenomenon identified by executives and in the business press, has been generally overlooked by scholars. Our empirical analysis indicates that most firms typically invest more capital when the state of the macro-economy is expanding and less during a downturn. In spite of this common investment pattern, we theorize and then find a consistent profit advantage for firms that invest more capital when the macro-economic cycle...

An Integrity Approach to Accounting Discretion

Although both the accounting and management literatures have generated important insights about the causes and consequences of earnings management, scholars have done little to address the fundamental decision making challenge facing the individual – namely, how managers should use accounting discretion, particularly where standards are ambiguous and pressures to manage earnings are high. We aim to address this gap in the literature by developing a framework that helps managers recognize the challenges created by accounting discretion, understand what is at stake in their choices, and arm themselves against the temptation to engage in earnings management by relating their decisions to corporate integrity, stakeholder trust, and market governance. Considering the renewed interest in professional ethics raised by the recent changes to the AICPA code of ethics, our ideas make a timely and important contribution to ongoing scholarly and practitioner conversations about how best to enhance ethical decision making in the accounting profession.

Against the Holistic Temptations

This article provides an analytical critique of three related concepts: Rousseau’s general will, Sieyes’s constituent power, and Carl Schmitt’s political unity and political decision, with a reference to the catastrophic constitution-making practice in Venezuela. The constituent power has become a supreme power beyond every institutional control and the constitution-making body is justified in representing the “political unity” to reach “fundamental political decision”, ultimately because they are supposed to represent the “general will” that has never existed in the real world. Rousseau’s sacrosanct “general will” is a fiction constructed by his holistic methodology, but has been erroneously transformed into reality to guide the constitutional and legislative practices. In the real world, of course, the so-called “general will” is no more than the will of the majority which, like the will of minorities, is prone to err in its judgments, only that the probability of the majority’s error is lower under certain conditions. Once removed of the false halo of the never-erring general will, the constituent power represents merely the will of the majority, while a political unity can never achieve absolute unity, and dissent opinions are the necessarily part of a normal society and shall always be given the opportunity to prove itself. The evil genie of absolute power shall be put back to and sealed in the Pandora’s Box, to which it properly belongs.

СТРАТЕГІЧНІ НАПРЯМКИ РОЗВИТКУ ЗАЛІЗНИЧНОЇ ГАЛУЗІ В УМОВАХ ЄВРОІНТЕГРАЦІЙНИХ ПРОЦЕСІВ

В статті розроблено та обгрунтовано стратегічні напрямки розвитку залізничної галузі в умовах євроінтеграційних процесів, що вимагає прийняття кардинальних рішень у зміні системи управління даної галузі. На підставі аналізу результатів роботи залізничного транспорту були визначені причини зниження прибутку пасажирських перевезень та запропоновані заходи підвищення ефективності їх діяльності, з урахування сучасних світових тенденцій організації роботи даного виду транспорту.

Managing Perishable Inventory Systems as Non-Perishable Ones

Perishable inventory problems have a long history and involve two fundamental decisions, how much to order and how much old inventory to clear before expiration, that are known to be difficult to optimize due to the curse of dimensionality. Most early work ignores the clearance decision and focuses solely on the ordering decision until recently where heuristic clearance policies have been developed. In this paper, we approach the problem from a different angle by exploring its asymptotic behavior, i.e., perishability can be ignored in many cases and hence clearance of inventory is not necessary except at the beginning of the planning horizon when a system is large enough. Inspired by such asymptotic behavior, we examine simple policies that ignore clearance under minor conditions and establish theoretical bounds for them. The bounds not only vanish asymptotically, but also indicate a system size required to guarantee any given optimality gap. Numerical studies suggest that such policies can work very well for systems with reasonable sizes and practical management of complex perishable inventory systems is not so much harder than that of non-perishable ones.

Watching TVs Left and Right: Partisanship in Media and Corporate Risk-Taking

Using the introduction of Fox News as a natural experiment, we investigate whether partisanship in television news coverage influences corporate decisions. We find that, during the George W. Bush presidency, firms led by Republican-leaning managers headquartered in regions into which Fox was introduced shift upward their total investment expenditures, investment expenditures devoted to R&D, and leverage. Our findings imply that in making fundamental corporate decisions, Republican-leaning managers are swayed by the Republican slant of Fox that presents an optimistic macroeconomic outlook. The results highlight the importance of heterogeneity in media slant in understanding the role of the media in corporate decision-making.

An international review of challenges and opportunities in development and use of crash prediction models

PurposeOver the past 10 years, building on road infrastructure data, crash prediction models (CPMs) have become fundamental scientific tools for road safety management. However, there is a gap between state-of-the-art and state-of-the-practice, with the practical application lagging behind scientific progress. This motivated a review of international experience with CPMs from perspectives of application by practitioners and development by researchers. The objective of the paper is to improve practitioner understanding of modelling road safety performance using CPMs for crash frequency estimation, leading to their greater uptake in improving road safety. In short, why and how should road safety practitioners consider CPMs?MethodsBoth scientific and practice-oriented literature was retrieved, using academic sources, as well as reports of road agencies or institutes. The selection was limited to English language.ResultsFrom the review it is clear that developing CPMs is not a straightforward task: there are many available choices and decisions to be made during the process without definite guidance. This explains the diversity of approaches, techniques, and model types. The paper explains how some fundamental modelling decisions affect practical aspects of modelling safety performance.ConclusionsThere is a need to identify CPM solutions that will be scientifically sound and feasible in practitioners’ context. Together with increased communication between researchers and practitioners, these solutions will help overcome the identified challenges and increase use of CPMs.

Including Health in Environmental Assessments of Major Transport Infrastructure Projects: A Documentary Analysis.

Background: Transport policy and practice impacts health. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are regulated public policy mechanisms that can be used to consider the health impacts of major transport projects before they are approved. The way health is considered in these environmental assessments (EAs) is not well known. This research asked: How and to what extent was human health considered in EAs of four major transport projects in Australia. Methods: We developed a comprehensive coding framework to analyse the Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) of four transport infrastructure projects: three road and one light rail. The coding framework was designed to capture how health was directly and indirectly included. Results: We found that health was partially considered in all four EISs. In the three New South Wales (NSW) projects, but not the one South Australian project, this was influenced by the requirements issued to proponents by the government which directed the content of the EIS. Health was assessed using human health risk assessment (HHRA). We found this to be narrow in focus and revealed a need for a broader social determinants of health approach, using multiple methods. The road assessments emphasised air quality and noise risks, concluding these were minimal or predicted to improve. The South Australian project was the only road project not to include health data explicitly. The light rail EIS considered the health benefits of the project whereas the others focused on risk. Only one project considered mental health, although in less detail than air quality or noise. Conclusion: Our findings suggest EIAs lag behind the known evidence linking transport infrastructure to health. If health is to be comprehensively included, a more complete model of health is required, as well as a shift away from health risk assessment as the main method used. This needs to be mandatory for all significant developments. We also found that considering health only at the EIA stage may be a significant limitation, and there is a need for health issues to be considered when earlier, fundamental decisions about the project are being made.

Proximal sensors for monitoring seasonal changes of feeding sites selected by grazing ewes

Montado is a silvo-pastoral ecosystem of the Mediterranean region, a mixed system of trees and grass, where livestock graze. The information about the spatial and temporal variability of pastures constitutes the basis to estimate available feed, a fundamental decision support tool for the farm manager to define the animal stocking or the rotation of the grazed paddocks. In this study, the intrinsic features of high spatial–temporal variability of Mediterranean grazed pastures were assessed with the objective of evaluating the suitability of two proximal sensing techniques (an active optical sensor, AOS and a capacitance probe) for easily monitoring seasonal variability of pasture productivity and quality linked to animal grazing patterns. The correlation between pasture and sensor parameters was consistent between capacitance and pasture productivity (r2 = 0.68, P < 0.01; and r2 = 0.87, P < 0.01, respectively for green pasture biomass, PB and pasture moisture content, PMC), between NDVI and pasture productivity (r2 = 0.73, P < 0.01; and r2 = 0.96, P < 0.01, respectively for PB and PMC) and between NDVI and pasture quality (r2 = 0.44, P < 0.05; r2 = 0.69, P < 0.01; and r2 = 0.78, P < 0.01, respectively for ash, crude protein, CP and neutral detergent fibre, NDF). The approach is a promising methodology for assessing seasonal changes in pasture that have values of biomass that range between 2000 and 85,000 kg ha−1 and vegetative sates from de green and leafy to dry. These results can be an important starting point for studies of evaluation and calibration of the optical sensor specifically for pasture quality assessment in different types of biodiverse pastures. This is a key factor for the management of animal grazing intensity and calculation of feed supplementation needs.

Das Recht des öffentlichen Dienstes – Grundlagen und neuere Entwicklungen

A structural element of the legal bases of civil service law is its two-tier structure. In recent times the German Constitutional Court has granted the public sector organisational discretion for the recruitment of teachers and professors as civil servants or private employees. In practice, this is exercised according to financial criteria, which causes general understanding for the specific values of an official status to dwindle. Art. 33 paragraph 4 GG as a binding constitutional norm has to be examined in three steps: First, the general legitimation of a career as public officer has to be proved; then the content of the tasks and the typical forms of their fulfilment must be described. This leads to the base of a constitutional requirement to employ school and university teachers as civil servants. The discussion on a strike ban under civil service law, which also concerns the state monopoly of sovereign powers, has been object of two decisions concerning Art. 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The different reactions to that by German courts have caused considerable legal uncertainty; a fundamental decision of the German Constitutional Court is imminent. The orientation and guiding role of the Strasbourg rules must be the starting point for international law-compatible course correction, which treats strike law uniformly for all civil servant categories, though no longer in relation to their status but to their function. The jurisdiction has to assure practical concordance between Art. 9 paragraph 3 and Art. 33 paragraph 5 German Constitution.

Highly dynamic wintering strategies in migratory geese: Coping with environmental change.

When and where to move is a fundamental decision to migratory birds, and the fitness‐related costs and benefits of migratory choices make them subject to strong selective forces. Site use and migration routes are outcomes of opportunities in the surrounding landscape, and the optimal migration strategy may be conservative or explorative depending on the variability in the environment occupied by the species. This study applies 25 years of resighting data to examine development in winter migration strategy of pink‐footed geese divided among Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium, and analyse potential drivers of strategy change as well as individuals’ likelihood to break with migratory tradition. Contrary with the general notion that geese are highly traditional in their winter site use, our results reveal that winter migration strategy is highly dynamic in this species, with an average annual probability of changing strategy of 54%. Strategy was not related to hunting pressure or winter temperature, but could be partly explained by a tracking of food resources in a landscape of rapid land use changes. The probability of individuals changing strategy from year to year varied considerably between birds, and was partly related to sex and age, with young males being the most likely to change. The annual probability of changing wintering strategy increased substantially from ≈40% to ≈60% during the study period, indicating an increasingly explorative behaviour. Our findings demonstrate that individual winter strategies are very flexible and able to change over time, suggesting that phenotypic plasticity and cultural transmission are important drivers of strategy choice in this species. Growing benefits from exploratory behaviours, including the ability to track rapid land use changes, may ultimately result in increased resilience to global change.

Supplier selection model using QFD-ANP methodology under fuzzy multi-criteria environment

Supplier selection is the most fundamental decision in the purchase management phase. Purchase is the most functional activity among several activities in a supply chain. A proper supplier selection supports a company's long-term strategies and its competitive position. Due to presence of ambiguities and uncertainties in the decision making process for selecting suppliers, fuzzy techniques could provide more reliable and flexible decision of supplier selection problem. In such techniques, customer needs and engineering requirements are weighted by the method of fuzzy analytic network process (ANP) and relationship matrix of quality function deployment (QFD) in fuzzy environment of their importance degree, respectively. Using a mathematical model would integrate the amount of cost components and objective factor measure (OFM). The integrated method is applied to a case study in a reputable Iranian automotive company. The results show the efficiency of the method through considering the viewpoint of decision-makers and their dependence on each other.

Amtsangemessenheit der Besoldung von Richtern und Beamten: prüfungsstufen und parameter für die berechnung und Verfassungsrechtliche beurteilung

Purpose. This study represents methods to determine constitutionally guaranteed minimum payment (alimentation) to judges and civil servants in Germany. Methods. Based on the constitutional enshrinement of civil service in Art. 33 para. 5 of Constitution it is demonstrated that Constitution gives rise to a requirement for “appropriate remuneration” of judges and civil servants, and that this requirement is enforceable (before administrative courts). It is shown how the vague legal term of “appropriateness” is construed in the case law, in particular of the Federal Constitutional Court, in order to determine a specific amount of appropriate remuneration in every case. Results. Recent case law of the Federal Constitutional Court provides a method for calculation of the appropriate remuneration of judges and civil servants, which stems exactly from the Constitution. In this context, a tension between case law and statutory law, that ultimately determines a remuneration level, is also discussed. Conclusions. This study comes to the conclusion that the Federal Constitutional Court in 2015, in its fundamental decision on the alimentation principle in interests of civil servants and judges, has convincingly established how (constitutionally guaranteed) appropriate remuneration shall be determined. The Federal Constitutional Court enforced the claim of civil servants and judges in individual cases. The lawmaker and the administrative courts are bound by the calculation method developed by the Federal Constitutional Court and apply it in practice.

When the Market Drives you Crazy: Stock Market Returns and Fatal Car Accidents

The stock market influences some of the most fundamental economic decisions of investors, such as consumption, saving, and labor supply, through the financial wealth channel. This pa-per provides evidence that daily fluctuations in the stock market have important - and hitherto neglected - spillover effects in another, unrelated domain, namely driving. Using the universe of fatal road car accidents in the United States from 1990 to 2015, we find that a one standard de- viation reduction in daily stock market returns is associated with a 0.5% increase in the number of fatal accidents. A battery of falsification tests support a causal interpretation of this finding. Our results are consistent with immediate emotions stirred by a negative stock market perfor-mance influencing the number of fatal accidents, in particular among inexperienced investors, thus highlighting the broader economic and social consequences of stock market fluctuations.

When the Market Drives You Crazy: Stock Market Returns and Fatal Car Accidents

The stock market influences some of the most fundamental economic decisions of investors, such as consumption, saving, and labor supply, through the financial wealth channel. This paper provides evidence that daily fluctuations in the stock market have important -and hitherto neglected- spillover effects in another, unrelated domain, namely driving. Using the universe of fatal road car accidents in the United States from 1990 to 2015, we find that a one standard deviation reduction in daily stock market returns is associated with a 0.5% increase in the number of fatal accidents. A battery of falsification tests support a causal interpretation of this finding. Our results are consistent with immediate emotions stirred by a negative stock market performance influencing the number of fatal accidents, in particular among inexperienced investors, thus highlighting the broader economic and social consequences of stock market fluctuations.