Informal Decision Research Articles

Inherent factors of family business and transgenerational influencing tourism business in Malaysian islands

ABSTRACTThere is an indication that the existence of transgeneration enterprise has unique ability as a ‘resilient factor’ in sustainable tourism development. It bridges the relationship between resilience and sustainability. This paper highlight evidences of the relationship using two successful case studies of Small-Medium scale tourism enterprises on the islands in Malaysia, namely the islands of Langkawi and Tioman. The most important factors influencing successful family business in transgeneration enterprise by priority within the business wealth point of view are aspect of survival, followed by low-entry barriers, ‘passing the baton’, bridging relationship, ‘smallness’, and adapt and change. From the socioemotional wealth point of view, aspect of belonging followed by family welfare priorities, structural generation change, contextual embeddedness, attitude, informal decision making and friendly working environment influence the success of family business in transgeneration enterprises. Hence, sustainable tourism development in the context of local community empowerment might only be achieved once the ‘resilient factor’ is present or in place and ready at the tourism destination.

Formal Versus Informal Judgments: Faculty Experiences With Entrustment in Graduate Medical Education.

Entrustment of residents has been formalized in many competency-based graduate medical education programs, but its relationship with informal decisions to entrust residents with clinical tasks is unclear. In addition, the effects of formal entrustment on training practice are still unknown. Our objective was to learn from faculty members in training programs with extensive experience in formal entrustment how formal entrustment relates to informal entrustment decisions. A questionnaire was e-mailed to all Dutch obstetrics and gynecology program directors to gather information on how faculty entrusts residents with clinical independence. We also interviewed faculty members to explore the relationship between formal entrustment and informal entrustment. Interviews were analyzed with conventional content analysis. Of 92 programs, 54 program directors completed the questionnaire (59% response rate). Results showed that formal entrustment was seen as valuable for generating formative feedback and giving insight into residents' progress in technical competencies. Interviewed faculty members (n = 12) used both formal and informal entrustment to determine the level of resident independence. Faculty reported they tended to favor informal entrustment because it can be reconsidered. In contrast, formal entrustment was reported to feel like a fixed state. In a graduate medical education program where formal entrustment has been used for more than a decade, faculty used a combination of formal and informal entrustment. Informal entrustment is key in deciding if a resident can work independently. Faculty members reported being unsure how to optimally use formal entrustment in practice next to their informal decisions.

How practitioners integrate decision triggers with existing metrics in conservation monitoring

Decision triggers are defined thresholds in the status of monitored variables that indicate when to undertake management, and avoid undesirable ecosystem change. Decision triggers are frequently recommended to conservation practitioners as a tool to facilitate evidence-based management practices, but there has been limited attention paid to how practitioners are integrating decision triggers into existing monitoring programs. We sought to understand whether conservation practitioners’ use of decision triggers was influenced by the type of variables in their monitoring programs. We investigated this question using a practitioner-focused workshop involving a structured discussion and review of eight monitoring programs. Among our case studies, direct measures of biodiversity (e.g. native species) were more commonly monitored, but less likely to be linked to decision triggers (10% with triggers) than measures being used as surrogates (54% with triggers) for program objectives. This was because decision triggers were associated with management of threatening processes, which were often monitored as a surrogate for a biodiversity asset of interest. By contrast, direct measures of biodiversity were more commonly associated with informal decision processes that led to activities such as management reviews or external consultation. Workshop participants were in favor of including more formalized decision triggers in their programs, but were limited by incomplete ecological knowledge, lack of appropriately skilled staff, funding constraints, and/or uncertainty regarding intervention effectiveness. We recommend that practitioners consider including decision triggers for discussion activities (such as external consultation) in their programs as more than just early warning points for future interventions, particularly for direct measures. Decision triggers for discussions should be recognized as a critical feature of monitoring programs where information and operational limitations inhibit the use of decision triggers for interventions.

SPORT OFFERS FOR REFUGEES IN GERMANY. PROMOTING AND HINDERING CONDITIONS IN VOLUNTARY SPORT CLUBS

After the long summer of migration, strong social and political movements of solidarity with and resistance against refugees developed in Europe. Expressions of solidarity and resistance were also recognisable in the sport system, especially in voluntary sport clubs (VSCs). As a result of this observation, the following article addresses the question: “Which organisational conditions of VSCs promote or hinder the implementation of sport activities for refugees?” To this aim, the article analyses and discusses the results of three research projects concerning sport offers for refugees in Germany. The interview material (n=49) collected in these projects was examined through the qualitative technique of thematic analysis and interpreted through a systems theoretical framework. The results show that conditions which promote and hinder the implementation of sport offers for refugees were identified in all formal (decision programmes, communication channels, and human resources) and informal (organisation culture) decision premises. Furthermore, the implementation of sport offers for refugees is particularly dependent on human resources within the sport clubs. The data show that the resolute will of individuals or small groups of people is highly relevant for the implementation of these sport offers. Finally, when it comes to organizing support for refugees, VSCs display an unexpected dynamic and a high capacity to mobilise resources within a short period of time. The discussion reflects these results and articulates strategies to safeguard, foster, and facilitate the social engagement of VSCs in relation to refugees.

Legality of the World Bank’s Informal Decisions to Expand into the Tax Field, and Implications of These Decisions for Its Legitimacy

The emergence of global tax governance was triggered by common tax problems, which are now still being faced by international society of nation-states. In the creation of this framework, international institutions have been playing a major role. One of these institutions is the World Bank (Bank). However, those who write about the virtues and vices of the main creators of the framework usually disregard the Bank. This article, therefore, argues that this disregard is not justified because the Bank has also been playing a prominent role. Since two informal decisions taken in the past have contributed to this position of the Bank, the article gives in addition to it answers to the following two related questions: whether these informal decisions of the Bank were legal and if so, what implications, if any, they have for the Bank’s legitimacy.

Assessing Equity in Protected Area Governance: Approaches to Promote Just and Effective Conservation

AbstractWith the inclusion of equity concerns in Aichi Target 11 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, equitable management has become an important objective for the world's protected areas. The way equity is defined and operationalized influences whether this strategic shift can help identify pathways commensurate with conservation effectiveness. We examined equity around a protected area in Laos, combining quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the three dimensions of procedure, recognition, and distribution. Local understandings of equity depended on discrete, evolving issues, with attention to informal decision making and dynamic values required to uncover suitable solutions. We show that equity definitions focused on material distribution and assessments reliant on standardized indicators may result in inadequate responses that sustain local perceptions of inequitable management and miss opportunities for effective conservation. Equity should be considered a management goal to continually adapt toward, informed by stakeholder dialogue.

Size and influence of the decision support networks of women newly diagnosed with breast cancer.

e18012 Background: Little is known about the size and characteristics of informal decision support networks of women diagnosed with breast cancer and whether involvement of informal decision supporters (DSP) influences breast cancer treatment decisions. Methods: A population-based sample of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients reported to the Georgia and Los Angeles SEER registries in 2014-15 were surveyed approximately 6 months after diagnosis (N = 2,502, 68% response rate). Network size was estimated by asking women to list up to 3 of the most important DSPs who helped them with locoregional therapy decisions. For each individual DSP listed, respondents reported how important each DSP’s opinion was in treatment decision making, and how satisfied they were with their involvement (5 pt. scales, “not at all” to “very”). Decision deliberation was measured using 5-items assessing degree patients thought through the decision, with higher scores reflecting more deliberative treatment decisions. We compared network size (0-3 or more) across patient-level characteristics and estimated the association between network size and deliberation using multivariable linear regression. Results: Of the 2,502 women in this analysis, 51% reported having 3 or more DSPs, 20% reported 2, 18% reported 1, and 11% reported not having any DSPs. Married/partnered women, those younger than 45 years old, and black women were all more likely to report larger networks (all p < 0.001). Partnered women most often reported their partner as their main DSP (37.9%), whereas not partnered/unmarried women most often reported children (38.4%). The majority of women were highly satisfied with their DSP being involved in their decisions (76.5%) and 68.6% felt their DSP was very important in their decision making. Larger support networks were associated with more deliberative surgical treatment decision-making (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Most women engaged multiple DSPs in their treatment decision making, including spouses, children, and friends. Involving more DSPs was associated with more deliberative treatment decisions. Future initiatives to improve breast cancer treatment decision making should acknowledge and engage informal DSPs.

Goodness-of-Fit Testing for the Newcomb-Benford Law With Application to the Detection of Customs Fraud

The Newcomb-Benford law for digit sequences has recently attracted interest in antifraud analysis. However, most of its applications rely either on diagnostic checks of the data, or on informal decision rules. We suggest a new way of testing the Newcomb-Benford law that turns out to be particularly attractive for the detection of frauds in customs data collected from international trade. Our approach has two major advantages. The first one is that we control the rate of false rejections at each stage of the procedure, as required in antifraud applications. The second improvement is that our testing procedure leads to exact significance levels and does not rely on large-sample approximations. Another contribution of our work is the derivation of a simple expression for the digit distribution when the Newcomb-Benford law is violated, and a bound for a chi-squared type of distance between the actual digit distribution and the Newcomb-Benford one.

The Accessibility of Informal Urban Women Workers (Study of Street Vendors in Malang, Indonesia)

The effort to increase people’s welfare through empowerment of informal woman workers to increase household income becomes interesting and important to do it. The empowerment of informal woman workers has important roles to decrease unequal distribution income and give substantial contribution for overcome the problem of unemployment. However, although woman had given income in the family, the man dominates the decision-making of the household rules. The accessibility should be directly proportional to the decision-making in the household rules. The purpose of this research is for 1) to analyze the motivation of informal urban woman worker, 2) to analyze the experience of woman worker, 3) to analyze education, 4) to analyze the capital of the worker, 5) to analyze the urban informal decision-making in the household rules. This research did in Malang. The population of this research is 1000 street vendors in Malang. Then, the sampling is taken using Random Sampling Method. The sample of this research consists of 24 respondents of street vendors. The result of the research is between motivation of work, work experience, and the fund are positively related to accessibility and the decision-making in the household rules have not high accessibility. It is due to very strong culture of patriarchy in society.

<b>Microempresário informal: determinantes da evasão fiscal na previdência social

As atividades desempenhadas na economia informal dos países em desenvolvimento, na medida em que não oferecem segurança social, não podem ser tidas como única saída ou meio de vida para os trabalhadores mais pobres. Cabendo aos governos desses países empregarem cada vez mais esforços para que os trabalhadores sejam atraídos para a formalidade e, com isso, passem a ter acesso à proteção social. O objetivo desse artigo é verificar quais características contribuíram para que os microempresários informais decidissem não colaborar para a previdência social dentre aqueles elegíveis ao grupo do MEI. Foram utilizados os microdados da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD) 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 e 2014 para estimar regressões logísticas. Os resultados do modelo demonstram que os microempresários do setor de construção civil são os que apresentam as maiores chances de não contribuir com a previdência. Por outro lado, foi constatado que, a partir do ano de 2011 houve aumento das chances de contribuição previdenciária do microempresário pertencente a primeira faixa de rendimento (de até R$ 1.000,00). O aumento da contribuição com a previdência seria resultado da mudança de comportamento dos microempresários de menor renda.

Legitimacy or Legitimation? Intensive Analysis of Informal Decision-Making Processes of Disaster Response after 3.11 Earthquake

Legitimacy or Legitimation? Intensive Analysis of Informal Decision-Making Processes of Disaster Response after 3.11 Earthquake

<b>患者の経験からみる臨床試験への参加判断と</b><b>インフォームドコンセントの意義 </b>

Clinical trials are a crucial step in the development of new medical technologies. Obtaining informed consent (IC) is a key component of clinical trials, which ensures that potential participants have the necessary information for decision-making. While patients' involvement is essential to improve the systems and circumstances of clinical trials, their perspectives and experiences are rarely shared with others. This study aims to investigate patients' perspectives and experiences of IC in clinical trials in Japan. A mixed method approach was adopted, including an internet-based survey of 21,502 patients and in-depth interviews of 41 patients. In the survey, 12,506 responses were analyzed, focusing on patients' understanding of IC. Among the 12,506 patients, 2,320 had some experience of clinical trials. Among the 888 patients who remembered receiving an explanation from the medical staff, 93.6% responded that it was easy to understand. Most respondents (84.5%) who had received an IC form read it again and 54.5% did not spend much time thinking before deciding whether to participate. From the in-depth interviews, we identified the following: the timing of decision-making and the meaning of IC for the patients. The patients made their “informal” decision prior to the “formal” IC process. They confirmed their “informal” decision during the IC process by collecting important information regarding the health risk of participation. From the patients' perspective, the timing of decision-making is outside the IC process. While patients make an informal decision, both medical staff and patients should recognize that written consent is the formal decision.

Determinants of Saving-Borrowing Decisions and Financial Inclusion in a High Middle Income Country: The Turkish Case

ABSTRACTWe use a representative survey of the Turkish household sector and investigate factors impinging on saving-borrowing behavior. We run four probit regressions to elucidate (i) the saving decision, (ii) asset choice or portfolio composition for those who save, (iii) the bank loan decision and lastly (iv) the formal versus informal borrowing decision. We find income, education, marital status and region within country strongly correlate with those decisions. We offer some insights regarding the influence of variables like rural to urban migrant status and religious belief on saving and borrowing decisions. We discuss the long-term implications of our findings on the Turkish household savings performance.

Family Factors in Small Family Business Growth

IntroductionBusiness goals commonly include survival, profit, and growth. In order to survive, a business needs to be profitable to replenish its resources and to grow to avoid stagnation and to keep abreast of competition. Complicating this process, family businesses may add goals such as enhancing family welfare to this equation. Family goals may not be performance-oriented in nature and may take precedence over the business goals of growth or profitability (Chrisman, Chua, and Steier, 2003). For instance, providing employment for less than fully productive family members may be most important to family business leaders.Scholars have recognized the duality of family businesses, referring to the family side and business side of family firms (Stafford, Duncan, Dane, and Winter, 1999) and hypothesizing that the success of such companies lies in the interplay and management of the two components. While the family side is often considered to be full of emotion and perhaps detrimental to the business, instances occur wherein the family may save the business. For example, the family may use personal savings to help the business through a financial crisis (Stafford et al., 1999). Although the business side is important for firm survival, it is not acceptable to sacrifice the family for the good of the business. This reciprocal impact of the family and the business distinguishes family business studies from all others (Sharma, 2004). Both the family and the business must respond to external disturbances. Therefore, if the family is content, the business is successful, and ifthey both respond appropriately to external events, the family business will be successful.Although there are many definitions of family businesses in the literature, we employ the following definition in this study. A family business isgoverned and/or managed with the intention to shape and pursue the vision of the business held by a dominant coalition controlled by members of the same family or a small number of families in a manner that is potentially sustainable across generations of the family or families (Chua, Chrisman, and Sharma, 1999, p. 25).The focus of our study is on small family businesses. The Small Business Administration defines small businesses in the U.S. as companies with less than 500 employees (or $7.5 million in average annual sales for many nonmanufacturing industries); however, there are exceptions (SBA, 2015).This study addresses how family factors may affect the business goal of growth in small family firms. Is it true that family involvement limits family firm growth? For instance, family firm leaders may entangle family and business goals and relationships (Kidwell, Eddleston, Cater, and Kellermanns, 2013). Relationship conflict may be detrimental in the family firm (Davis and Harveston, 2001), and family members may feel trapped in their family business (Schultze, Lubatkin, and Dino 2003). Conversely, family involvement may strengthen family firm growth. Family firms are known to: rely on idiosyncratic knowledge to improve firm performance (Bjuggren and Sund, 2001); employ more informal decision making than non-family firms (Daily and Dollinger, 1992); utilize a more centralized decision-making process and less formalized control systems (Morris, Williams, Allen, and Avila, 1997); have greater flexibility in decision making (Poza, Alfred, and Maheshkwari, 1997); make quick decisions when required (Ward, 1997); and respond quickly to their business environment (Dreux, 1990). Therefore, this research was guided by the following question. Why do some small family firms grow and add multiple outlets across a geographic area, while others remain in one location? Although we recognize that many factors, such as family, business, and macro-environmental, affect small family business growth, the focus of our study is on the family factors that lead to company growth. These family factors separate small family businesses from non-family concerns. …

Indicators of Informal and Formal Decision-making about a Socioscientific Issue

We propose two contrasting types of student decision-making based on social and cognitive psychology models of separate mental processes for problem solving. Informal decision-making uses intuitive reasoning and is subject to cognitive biases, whereas formal decision-making uses effortful, logical reasoning. We explored indicators of students’ formal decision-making in a socioscientific issue-focused general science post-secondary course that used a seven-step decision-making framework based in decision-science models. We found that students’ value orientations predicted students’ stance towards biofuels at the beginning but not at the end of the course, indicating some students’ post-survey opinions were less rooted in affective value-judgments. Themes in student personal reasoning about biofuels were primarily focused on environmental and economic dimensions of the issue and revealed a greater awareness of alternative options and potential consequences of biofuel use at the end of the course. We observed a decrease in students’ emotive arguments and an increase in students’ justificatory arguments about biofuel use. A formal decision-making framework may be a useful tool in supporting students’ formal, reasoned approach to deciding what we should do about complex socioscientific issues.

Reconciling formal and informal decision-making on ecotourist infrastructure in Sagada, Philippines

Insofar as numerous ecotourism destinations host indigenous communities, these sites add emphasis to sustainable tourism's cultural dimension alongside its environmental one. Especially noteworthy is the interplay between formal and informal institutions for decision-making regarding ecotourist infrastructure. Contemporary literature advocating participation seldom concerns the often-substantial role played by informal institutions, preferring to focus on formal institutions. As a result, even well-meaning formal institutions meant to encourage participation can be undermined by disregarding established informal institutions that retain contemporary relevance in governance-related matters. In this article, we redress this imbalance by analyzing six distinct projects undertaken in the Philippine mountain retreat of Sagada between 1994 and 2013, focusing on formal/informal institutional interplay in decision-making. That formal institutions do not always dominate informal ones has wider implications for initiatives designed to encourage community participation. To this end, we develop a typological theory which identifies factors affecting informal institutions' adaptations to formal ones: goodness of fit, retrofitting, decoupling and bricolage. These adaptations have policymaking implications for helping to promote indigenous people's rights to self-determination in sustainable contexts. Sagada's backdrop also provides a useful vantage point in discerning how international rights conventions filter down to local-level implementation.

Decision making in the product portfolio: Methods adopted by Brazil's innovative companies

Product portfolio management is one of the leading contemporary trends in innovation strategy and R&D management. This paper aims to present and analyze methods that companies from the electronics and computer sectors adopt for decision making in their portfolios. A survey that collected information from 71 companies operating in Brazil was carried out, and it was noted that despite the financial methods, market research, and mapping being employed by some firms to base decision making on their product portfolios, most of them rely upon the informal decisions of senior management. In this way, the results of this survey indicate that, in addition to the formal methods, aspects of the influence and bargaining power of leaders must also be considered when analyzing and proposing management practices related to product portfolios.

The Informal Politics of Codecision: Introducing a New Data Set on Early Agreements in the European Union

One of the most important developments in the history of the EU’s codecision procedure has been the steep rise in “early agreements” since 1999, and the shift of legislative decision-making from public inclusive to informal secluded arenas. As part of a wider research project on “The Informal Politics of Codecision”, this working paper launches a new data set on all 797 legislative files concluded under codecision between 1999 and 2009. The paper discusses the process of data collection and coding; explains and justifies the operationalisation and measurement of key variables; and elaborates on the methodological challenges of capturing informal political processes. The paper offers rich descriptive statistics on the scale and scope of early agreements across time, and explores how key characteristics of the legislative file (legal nature, policy area, complexity, salience, policy type, duration) and of the main negotiators (priorities of the Council Presidency, ideological distance between Parliament’s rapporteur and national minister, Presidency’s workload) co-vary with decision-makers’ choice to “go informal”. Demonstrating that early agreements are not restricted to technical, urgent or uncontested files but occur across the breadth of EU legislation, and increasingly so with time in use, the data strongly underline the relevance of informal decision-making for scholars and policy-makers alike.

Self-determination of pupils with intellectual disabilities in Norwegian secondary school

This article examines how the self-determination of pupils with intellectual disabilities is practised in secondary school in Norway and discusses possible challenges connected to this practice. The argumentation builds on the fieldwork of qualitative interviews (N = 55) and participant observations in schools in Norway (pupils 13–16 years old). The pupils attend a variety of educational settings, including ordinary classes at mainstream schools, the department of special education at mainstream schools and special education schools. The study reveals considerable variations in the pupils’ opportunities to practise self-determination. While the self-determination of pupils with intellectual disabilities is rather extensive when it comes to their influence over informal and minor decisions in everyday life at school, it is very limited when it comes to formal and major decisions. Furthermore, the implementation of the pupils’ self-determination is primarily spontaneous and seldom anchored in the pupils’ Individual Education Plans. Such an implementation practice limits the pupils’ opportunities to participate in democratic processes, learning and social interaction.

Decisions and Caregiving

This focus group study describes end-of-life caregiving and decision making among blacks from the perspective of the informal caregivers and decision makers. The Behavioral Model of Health Services Use framed the study. Five focus groups with a total of 53 informal caregivers/decision makers were conducted. A qualitative phenomenological approach was used for the data analysis. Findings are presented under the themes of end of life caregiving and decision making roles, dynamics and process, and beliefs and values. The common thread of care giving and decision-making within relationship and six subthemes were identified. Findings also suggest the need for support and inclusion of designated informal caregivers and decision-makers in the advance care planning process early in the disease trajectory.