Importance of decision-making in a purchasing context – DPS Case Study

This work project has the objective of exploring the importance of making good decisions on supplier selection, so that the purchasing department can contribute to the success of a company. For that it is presented a short bibliography review of the latest insights that were found relevant, on the subjects of purchasing, technology, outsourcing, supplier selection and decision-making techniques. For a better understating on how to deal with a decision-making situation, a case study is also presented: Digital Printing Solutions (DPS) is a Portuguese company that provides complete and integrated printing solutions and has been planning to contract a software supplier. DPS has no formal supplier-selection model and it has to choose between 2 suppliers. The case study was solved using the M-MACBETH software. I have found that complex decisions-making situations can be easily overcome by using the M-MACBETH decision model. Moreover, the usage of a model, instead of decision that follows no formal procedure, provides the decision maker with insights that can be useful to negotiate with the supplier.

Uncertainty in olfactory decision-making

Relationships between accuracy and speed of decision-making, or speed-accuracy tradeoffs (SAT), have been extensively studied. However, the range of SAT observed varies widely across studies for reasons that are unclear. Several explanations have been proposed, including motivation or incentive for speed vs. accuracy, species and modality but none of these hypotheses has been directly tested. An alternative explanation is that the different degrees of SAT are related to the nature of the task being performed. Here, we addressed this problem by comparing SAT in two odor-guided decision tasks that were identical except for the nature of the task uncertainty: an odor mixture categorization task, where the distinguishing information is reduced by making the stimuli more similar to each other; and an odor identification task in which the information is reduced by lowering the intensity over a range of three log steps. (...)

Safety classification using GIS in decision-making process to define priority road interventions

Given the current economic situation of the Portuguese municipalities, it is necessary to identify the priority investments in order to achieve a more efficient financial management. The classification of the road network of the municipality according to the occurrence of traffic accidents is fundamental to set priorities for road interventions. This paper presents a model for road network classification based on traffic accidents integrated in a geographic information system. Its practical application was developed through a case study in the municipality of Barcelos. An equation was defined to obtain a road safety index through the combination of the following indicators: severity, property damage only and accident costs. In addition to the road network classification, the application of the model allows to analyze the spatial coverage of accidents in order to determine the centrality and dispersion of the locations with the highest incidence of road accidents. This analysis can be further refined according to the nature of the accidents namely in collision, runoff and pedestrian crashes.

Normal aging and decision-making: a systematic review of the literature of the last 10 years

Objective Conduct a systematic review to investigate whether healthy elderly have deficits in the decision-making process when compared to the young. Methods We performed a systematic search on SciELO, Lilacs, PsycINFO, Scopus and PubMed database with keywords decision making and aging (according to the description of Mesh terms) at least 10 years. Results We found nine studies from different countries, who investigated 441 young and 377 elderly. All studies used the IOWA Gambling Task as a way of benchmarking the process of decision making. The analysis showed that 78% of the articles did not have significant differences between groups. However, 100% of the studies that assessed learning did find relevant differences. Furthermore, studies that observed the behavior of individuals in the face of losses and gains, 60% of articles showed that the elderly has more disadvantageous choices throughout the task. Conclusion: The consulted literature showed no consensus on the existence of differences in performance of the decision-making process between old and young, but it is observed that the elderly has deficits in learning and a tendency to fewer advantageous choices.

Analyzing university spin-offs and supporting decision making in new venture creation

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Wirtschaftswiss., Diss., 2008

Network Meta-analysis to Synthesize Evidence for Decision Making in Cardiovascular Research

Abstract Clinical decision-making requires synthesis of evidence from literature reviews focused on a specific theme. Evidence synthesis is performed with qualitative assessments and systematic reviews of randomized clinical trials, typically covering statistical pooling with pairwise meta-analyses. These methods include adjusted indirect comparison meta-analysis, network meta-analysis, and mixed-treatment comparison. These tools allow synthesis of evidence and comparison of effectiveness in cardiovascular research.

Incentive structures in economic experiments : a neuroeconomic analysis of decision making under risk

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Wirtschaftswiss., Diss., 2013

Medical decision making: perspectives of patients and physicians

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Wirtschaftswiss., Diss., 2013

Cooperative vs. non-cooperative mechanisms in the EU decision making process

According to the account of the European Union (EU) decision making proposed in this paper, this is a bargaining process during which actors shift their policy positions with a view to reaching agreements on controversial issues.

Women's decision making and experience of subsequent pregnancy following stillbirth.

INTRODUCTION: This study sought to increase understanding of women's thoughts and feelings about decision making and the experience of subsequent pregnancy following stillbirth (intrauterine death after 24 weeks' gestation). METHODS: Eleven women were interviewed, 8 of whom were pregnant at the time of the interview. Modified grounded theory was used to guide the research methodology and to analyze the data. RESULTS: A model was developed to illustrate women's experiences of decision making in relation to subsequent pregnancy and of subsequent pregnancy itself. DISCUSSION: The results of the current study have significant implications for women who have experienced stillbirth and the health professionals who work with them. Based on the model, women may find it helpful to discuss their beliefs in relation to healing and health professionals to provide support with this in mind. Women and their partners may also benefit from explanations and support about the potentially conflicting emotions they may experience during this time.

Effects of stress on economic decision-making: Evidence from laboratory experiments

The ways in which preferences respond to the varying stress of economic environments is a key question for behavioral economics and public policy. We conducted a laboratory experiment to investigate the effects of stress on financial decision making among individuals aged 50 and older. Using the cold pressor task as a physiological stressor, and a series of intelligence tests as cognitive stressors, we find that stress increases subjective discounting rates, has no effect on the degree of risk-aversion, and substantially lowers the effort individuals make to learn about financial decisions.

How family caregivers' medical and moral assumptions influence decision making for patients in the vegetative state: a qualitative interview study.

Background Decisions on limiting life-sustaining treatment for patients in the vegetative state (VS) are emotionally and morally challenging. In Germany, doctors have to discuss, together with the legal surrogate (often a family member), whether the proposed treatment is in accordance with the patient's will. However, it is unknown whether family members of the patient in the VS actually base their decisions on the patient's wishes. Objective To examine the role of advance directives, orally expressed wishes, or the presumed will of patients in a VS for family caregivers' decisions on life-sustaining treatment. Methods and sample A qualitative interview study with 14 next of kin of patients in a VS in a long-term care setting was conducted; 13 participants were the patient's legal surrogates. Interviews were analysed according to qualitative content analysis. Results The majority of family caregivers said that they were aware of aforementioned wishes of the patient that could be applied to the VS condition, but did not base their decisions primarily on these wishes. They gave three reasons for this: (a) the expectation of clinical improvement, (b) the caregivers' definition of life-sustaining treatments and (c) the moral obligation not to harm the patient. If the patient's wishes were not known or not revealed, the caregivers interpreted a will to live into the patient's survival and non-verbal behaviour. Conclusions Whether or not prior treatment wishes of patients in a VS are respected depends on their applicability, and also on the medical assumptions and moral attitudes of the surrogates. We recommend repeated communication, support for the caregivers and advance care planning.

Effects of anxiety on visuospatial pattern discrimination and decision-making processes: what can we learn from brain dynamics ?

Detection and discrimination of visuospatial input involve at least extracting, selecting and encoding relevant information and decision-making processes allowing selecting a response. These two operations are altered, respectively, by attentional mechanisms that change discrimination capacities, and by beliefs concerning the likelihood of uncertain events. Information processing is tuned by the attentional level that acts like a filter on perception, while decision-making processes are weighed by subjective probability of risk. In addition, it has been shown that anxiety could affect the detection of unexpected events through the modification of the level of arousal. Consequently, purpose of this study concerns whether and how decision-making and brain dynamics are affected by anxiety. To investigate these questions, the performance of women with either a high (12) or a low (12) STAI-T (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Spielberger, 1983) was examined in a decision-making visuospatial task where subjects have to recognize a target visual pattern from non-target patterns. The target pattern was a schematic image of furniture arranged in such a way as to give the impression of a living room. Non-target patterns were created by either the compression or the dilatation of the distances between objects. Target and non-target patterns were always presented in the same configuration. Preliminary behavioral results show no group difference in reaction time. In addition, visuo-spatial abilities were analyzed trough the signal detection theory for quantifying perceptual decisions in the presence of uncertainty (Green and Swets, 1966). This theory treats detection of a stimulus as a decision-making process determined by the nature of the stimulus and cognitive factors. Astonishingly, no difference in d' (corresponding to the distance between means of the distributions) and c (corresponds to the likelihood ratio) indexes was observed. Comparison of Event-related potentials (ERP) reveals that brain dynamics differ according to anxiety. It shows differences in component latencies, particularly a delay in anxious subjects over posterior electrode sites. However, these differences are compensated during later components by shorter latencies in anxious subjects compared to non-anxious one. These inverted effects seem indicate that the absence of difference in reaction time rely on a compensation of attentional level that tunes cortical activation in anxious subjects, but they have to hammer away to maintain performance.

Impact of voting advice applications on voters's decision-making

So-called online Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have become very popular all over Europe. Millions of voters are using them as an assistance to make up their minds for which party they should vote. Despite this popularity there are only very few studies about the impact of these tools on individual electoral choice. On the basis of the Swiss VAA smartvote we present some first findings about the question whether VAAs do have a direct impact on the actual vote of their users. In deed, we find strong evidence that Swiss voters were affected by smartvote. However, our findings are somewhat contrary to the results of previous studies from other countries. Furthermore, the quality of available data for such studies needs to be improved. Future studies should pay attention to both: the improvement of the available data, as well as the explanation of the large variance of findings between the specific European countries.