'Going Public': The Mediatization of Decision-Making Processes

In most Western countries, the media are said to exert an increasing influence on the political game. This development, which has been described variably as a shift towards an 'audience democracy' (Manin 1995) or the 'mediatization of politics' (Mazzoleni and Schulz 1999), emphasizes the increasing importance of the media for political actors and political decision-making. In such a context, political actors need to communicate with both the media and the public in order to gain support for their policy plans and to influence decision-making. The media were noticeably absent from Kriesi's (1980) in-depth analysis of political decision-making in Switzerland. This suggests that in the early 1970s, the media did not matter or mattered far less than they do today.

Linking job insecurity to negative decision making: The mediating role of job tension

Job insecurity has increased markedly in the developed economies of the world (Gray, 2002). The effects of job insecurity on individual employees and on organisational outcomes, however, are controversial. For instance, Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt (1984) point out that job insecurity can result in increased work effort, while Dekker and Schaufeli, (1995) argue that insecurity leads to stress and decreased performance. In this paper, we outline a study examining the indirect impact of job insecurity on decision-making, via job-related tension. Based on a web survey involving 217 participants, we found that job insecurity indirectly increased the adoption of negative decision-making strategies by increasing employees’ level of job-related tension. Limitations and implications for theory and managers are also discussed.

Minority dissent and team innovation:the importance of participation in decision making

This study integrates research on minority dissent and individual creativity, as well as team diversity and the quality of group decision making, with research on team participation in decision making. From these lines of research, it was proposed that minority dissent would predict innovation in teams but only when teams have high levels of participation in decision making. This hypothesis was tested in 2 studies, 1 involving a homogeneous sample of self-managed teams and 1 involving a heterogeneous sample of cross-functional teams. Study 1 suggested that a newly developed scale to measure minority dissent has discriminant validity. Both Study 1 and Study 2 showed more innovations under high rather than low levels of minority dissent but only when there was a high degree of participation in team decision making. It is concluded that minority dissent stimulates creativity and divergent thought, which, through participation, manifest as innovation.

An examination of intuition in strategic decision-making:the role of context

Intuition is a vitally important concept in strategic decision making research because it enables decision-makers to rapidly detect patterns in dynamic environments in order to cope with the time-pressured, ill-structured and non-routine nature of strategic decision-making. Despite a growing body of conceptual literature emphasising the importance of intuition in strategic decision-making; there has been very little development of theory explaining the contextual factors that cause intuition to be used in the strategic decision-making process. This paper demonstrates that by integrating different contextual variables a clear understanding of the influences on the use of intuition in strategic decision-making can be developed. This article develops an integrative theoretical model together with testable research propositions, which if empirically examined, would make a substantial contribution to knowledge.

The influence of patient's age on clinical decision-making about coronary heart disease in the USA and the UK

This paper examines UK and US primary care doctors' decision-making about older (aged 75 years) and midlife (aged 55 years) patients presenting with coronary heart disease (CHD). Using an analytic approach based on conceptualising clinical decision-making as a classification process, it explores the ways in which doctors' cognitive processes contribute to ageism in health-care at three key decision points during consultations. In each country, 56 randomly selected doctors were shown videotaped vignettes of actors portraying patients with CHD. The patients' ages (55 or 75 years), gender, ethnicity and social class were varied systematically. During the interviews, doctors gave free-recall accounts of their decision-making. The results do not establish that there was substantial ageism in the doctors' decisions, but rather suggest that diagnostic processes pay insufficient attention to the significance of older patients' age and its association with the likelihood of co-morbidity and atypical disease presentations. The doctors also demonstrated more limited use of 'knowledge structures' when diagnosing older than midlife patients. With respect to interventions, differences in the national health-care systems rather than patients' age accounted for the differences in doctors' decisions. US doctors were significantly more concerned about the potential for adverse outcomes if important diagnoses were untreated, while UK general practitioners cited greater difficulty in accessing diagnostic tests.

Investigating the influence of African American and African Caribbean race on primary care doctors' decision making about depression

This paper explores differences in how primary care doctors process the clinical presentation of depression by African American and African-Caribbean patients compared with white patients in the US and the UK. The aim is to gain a better understanding of possible pathways by which racial disparities arise in depression care. One hundred and eight doctors described their thought processes after viewing video recorded simulated patients presenting with identical symptoms strongly suggestive of depression. These descriptions were analysed using the CliniClass system, which captures information about micro-components of clinical decision making and permits a systematic, structured and detailed analysis of how doctors arrive at diagnostic, intervention and management decisions. Video recordings of actors portraying black (both African American and African-Caribbean) and white (both White American and White British) male and female patients (aged 55 years and 75 years) were presented to doctors randomly selected from the Massachusetts Medical Society list and from Surrey/South West London and West Midlands National Health Service lists, stratified by country (US v.UK), gender, and years of clinical experience (less v. very experienced). Findings demonstrated little evidence of bias affecting doctors' decision making processes, with the exception of less attention being paid to the potential outcomes associated with different treatment options for African American compared with White American patients in the US. Instead, findings suggest greater clinical uncertainty in diagnosing depression amongst black compared with white patients, particularly in the UK. This was evident in more potential diagnoses. There was also a tendency for doctors in both countries to focus more on black patients' physical rather than psychological symptoms and to identify endocrine problems, most often diabetes, as a presenting complaint for them. This suggests that doctors in both countries have a less well developed mental model of depression for black compared with white patients. © 2014 The Authors.

International practices in investment decision making in road sector

This document provides the findings of an international review of investment decision-making practices in road asset management. Efforts were concentrated on identifying the strategic objectives of agencies in road asset management, establishing and understanding criteria different organisations adopted and ascertaining the exact methodologies used by different countries and international organisations. Road assets are powerful drivers of economic development and social equity. They also have significant impacts on the natural and man-made environment. The traditional definition of asset management is “A systematic process of maintaining, upgrading and operating physical assets cost effectively. It combines engineering principles with sound business practices and economic theory and it provides tools to facilitate a more organised, logical approach to decision-making” (US Dept. of Transportation, 1999). In recent years, the concept has been broadened to cover the complexity of decision making, based on a wider variety of policy considerations as well as social and environmental issues rather than is covered by Benefit-Cost analysis and pure technical considerations. Current international practices are summarised in table 2. It was evident that Engineering-economic analysis methods are well advanced to support decision-making. A range of tools available supports performance predicting of road assets and associated cost/benefit in technical context. The need for considering triple plus one bottom line of social, environmental and economic as well as political factors in decision-making is well understood by road agencies around the world. The techniques used to incorporate these however, are limited. Most countries adopt a scoring method, a goal achievement matrix or information collected from surveys. The greater uncertainty associated with these non-quantitative factors has generally not been taken into consideration. There is a gap between the capacities of the decision-making support systems and the requirements from decision-makers to make more rational and transparent decisions. The challenges faced in developing an integrated decision making framework are both procedural and conceptual. In operational terms, the framework should be easy to be understood and employed. In philosophical terms, the framework should be able to deal with challenging issues, such as uncertainty, time frame, network effects, model changes, while integrating cost and non-cost values into the evaluation. The choice of evaluation techniques depends on the feature of the problem at hand, on the aims of the analysis, and on the underlying information base At different management levels, the complexity in considering social, environmental, economic and political factor in decision-making is different. At higher the strategic planning level, more non-cost factors are involved. The complexity also varies based on the scope of the investment proposals. Road agencies traditionally place less emphasis on evaluation of maintenance works. In some cases, social equity, safety, environmental issues have been used in maintenance project selection. However, there is not a common base for the applications.

National practices in investment decision making in road sector

This document provides the findings of a national review of investment decision-making practices in road asset management. Efforts were concentrated on identifying the strategic objectives of agencies in road asset management, establishing and understanding criteria different organisations adopted and ascertaining the exact methodologies used by different sate road authorities. The investment objectives of Australian road authorities are based on triple-bottom line considerations (social, environmental, economic and political). In some cases, comparing with some social considerations, such as regional economic development, equity, and access to pubic service etc., Benefit-Cost Ratio has limited influence on the decision-making. Australian road authorities have developed various decision support tools. Although Multi-Criteria Analysis has been preliminarily used in case by case study, pavement management systems, which are primarily based on Benefit Cost Analysis, are still the main decision support tool. This situation is not compatible with the triple-bottom line objectives. There is need to fill the gap between decision support tools and decision-making itself. Different decision criteria should be adopted based on the contents of the work. Additional decision criteria, which are able to address social, environmental and political impacts, are needed to develop or identify. Environmental issue plays a more and more important role in decision-making. However, the criteria and respective weights in decision-making process are yet to be clearly identified. Social and political impacts resulted from road infrastructure investment can be identified through Community Perceptions Survey. With accumulative data, prediction models, which are similar as pavement performance models, can be established. Using these models, the decision-makers are able to foresee the social and political consequences of investment alternatives.

Cross-cultural differences in self-reported decision-making style and confidence

The Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire (Mann, Burnett, Radford, & Ford, 1997) measures selfreported decision-making coping patterns. The questionnaire was administered to samples of University students in the US (N = 475), Australia (N = 262), New Zealand (N = 260), Japan (N = 359), Hong Kong (N = 281), and Taiwan (N = 414). As predicted, students from the three Western, individualistic cultures (US, Australia, and New Zealand) were more con® dent of their decision-making ability than students from the three East Asian, group-oriented cultures (Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan). No cross-cultural differences were found in scores on decision vigilance (a careful decision-making style). However, compared with Western students, the Asian students tended to score higher on buck-passing and procrastination (avoidant styles of decision making) as well as hypervigilance (a panicky style of decision making). Japanese students scored lowest on decision self-esteem and highest on procrastination and hypervigilance. It was argued that the con¯ ict model and its attendant coping patterns is relevant for describing and comparing decision making in both Western and Asian cultures.

The Melbourne Decision-Making Questionnaire : an instrument for measuring patterns for coping with decisional conflict

A study was conducted to examine the factorial validity of the Flinders Decision Making Questionnaire (Mann, 1982), a 31-item self-report inventory designed to measure tendencies to use three major coping patterns identified in the conflict theory of decision making (Janis and Mann, 1977): vigilance, hypervigilance, and defensive avoidance (procrastination, buck-passing, and rationalization). A sample of 2051 university students, comprising samples from Australia (n=262), New Zealand (n=260), the USA (n=475), Japan (n=359), Hong Kong (n=281) and Taiwan (n=414) was administered the DMQ. Factorial validity of the instrument was tested by confirmatory factor analysis with LISREL. Five different substantive models, representing different structural relationships between the decision-coping patterns had unsatisfactory fit to the data and could not be validated. A shortened instrument, containing 22 items, yielded a revised model comprising four identifiable factors-vigilance, hypervigilance, buck-passing, and procrastination. The revised model had adequate fit with data for each country sample and for the total sample, and was confirmed. It is recommended that the 22-item instrument, named the Melbourne DMQ, replace the Flinders DMQ for measurement of decision-coping patterns.

Planning for smart urban ecosystems : information technology applications for capacity building in environmental decision making

Since the industrial revolution, our world has experienced rapid and unplanned industrialization and urbanization. As a result, we have had to cope with serious environmental challenges. In this context, an explanation of how smart urban ecosystems can emerge, gains a crucial importance. Capacity building and community involvement have always been key issues in achieving sustainable development and enhancing urban ecosystems. By considering these, this paper looks at new approaches to increase public awareness of environmental decision making. This paper will discuss the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), particularly Webbased Geographic Information Systems (Web-based GIS) as spatial decision support systems to aid public participatory environmental decision making. The paper also explores the potential and constraints of these webbased tools for collaborative decision making.

Unstructured strategic decision-making processes : CRE decision-making in the Italian consulting industry

This thesis aims at developing a better understanding of unstructured strategic decision making processes and the conditions for achieving successful decision outcomes. Specifically it focuses on the processes used to make CRE (Corporate Real Estate) decisions. The starting point for this thesis is that our knowledge of such processes is incomplete. A comprehensive study of the most recent CRE literature together with Behavioural Organization Theory has provided a research framework for the exploration of CRE recommended =best practice‘, and of how organizational variables impact on and shape these practices. To reveal the fundamental differences between CRE decision-making in practice and the prescriptive =best practice‘ advocated in the CRE literature, a study of seven Italian management consulting firms was undertaken addressing the aspects of content and process of decisions. This thesis makes its primary contribution by identifying the importance and difficulty of finding the right balance between problem complexity, process richness and cohesion to ensure a decision-making process that is sufficiently rich and yet quick enough to deliver a prompt outcome. While doing so, this research also provides more empirical evidence to some of the most established theories of decision-making while reinterpreting their mono-dimensional arguments in a multi-dimensional model of successful decision-making.

Defending the sanctity of life principle : a reply to John Keown

This article is a response to Professor Keown’s criticism of my paper “Finding a Way Through the Ethical and Legal Maze: Withdrawal of Medical Treatment and Euthanasia” (2005) 13 (3) Medical Law Review 357. The article takes up and responds to a number of criticisms raised by Keown in an attempt to further the debate concerning the moral and legal status of withdrawing life-sustaining measures, its distinction from euthanasia, and the implications of the lawfulness of withdrawal for the principle of the sanctity of life.