Decision making naturalized: the interweaving of the unconscious, the emotional and the rational in decisions taken in a contigent world

Dadas as limitações e inadequações presentes, tanto no arquétipo do tomador de decisão como um agente racional, adotado nas teorias econômicas e gerenciais, quanto no estereótipo de um ser transcendental, tão presente na vida prosaica, se faz necessário substituí-los por uma nova perspectiva: onde o tomador de decisão é um animal emocional, frágil diante do acaso, e fruto de um processo evolutivo.

The influence of urban structures on entrepreneurial decision-making: a comparative analysis of Mexico City and São Paulo

Promover a atividade empreendedora é hoje mais do que nunca uma prioridade para as economias em desenvolvimento. Em diferentes partes do mundo, empreendedores têm sido reconhecidos como verdadeiros agentes de transformação, e as novas empresas que eles criam tornam-se condutoras de inovação, que ao final pode ser difundida ao resto da economia. Teorias de economia urbana, que analisam a dinâmica da relação entre aglomeração urbana e atividade econômica, enfatizam a importância da concentração espacial das indústrias num mesmo setor industrial. Entender os incentivos que dão início à atividade empreendedora é algo novo e o foco desses estudos tem sido principalmente em alguns poucos casos de economias industrializadas. Não obstante, o sucesso de um punhado de clusters de alta tecnologia, como o Vale do Silício, por exemplo, na Califórnia, Estados Unidos, não pode ser replicado, e as condições locais devem ser consideradas a fim de entender a surgimento desses ecossistemas. Este estudo pretende investigar os critérios em que os empreendedores fundamentam suas decisões quando selecionam as localizações do seu negócio. Especificamente, a pesquisa explora o recente movimento dos ecossistemas de empreendedores na Cidade do México e em São Paulo, as duas maiores áreas metropolitanas da América Latina, à luz das teorias de economia urbana. A fim de chegar aos resultados, a pesquisa segue o método baseado sobre uma análise comparativa de estudo de casos em dois bairros: Vila Leopoldina em São Paulo e a Colônia Roma Norte na Cidade do México. Os resultados consolidados baseados em entrevistas qualitativas realizadas nos dois bairros revelam que o lugar/sitio urbano, definido em termos de laços locais assim como da atmosfera geral do ambiente, continua sendo importante para os atores apesar das comunicações de alta velocidade que produzem mais interações entre as regiões do mundo. Além disso, a relação entre o empreendedor e o seu entorno é altamente dependente do estágio de desenvolvimento e da natureza da atividade da empresa; redes informais revelam-se essenciais para identificar as oportunidades de negócio antes de serem progressivamente substituídas por relações instituídas com fundos de capital de risco ou incubadoras. Estes dois ecossistemas nascentes geram suas próprias características, o que já pode sugerir suas futuras evoluções.

How national culture on consumers' decision-making styles: a comparative study among Americans, Brazilians, Chinese, and japanese in the purchase of cell phones.

The influence of the national culture on consumer decision-making styles is investigated using a sample of Americans, Brazilians, Chinese, and Japanese consumers who have purchased a cell phone in the past three years. To make the research possible, a survey was used as a method of data collection. It relates Hofstede’s cultural classification typology with Sproles and Kendall’s consumer style inventory (CSI). The multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) results indicate six decision-making styles together with other consumer behavioral characteristics that can be used to distinguish and profile consumers who purchase cell phones. Empirical findings reveal that among Americans, Brazilians, and Japanese; Americans are the most quality conscious, brand conscious, innovative, and hedonistic shoppers; Brazilians are the most loyal, and Japanese, the most confused by overchoice consumers. Conceptual contributions and managerial implications are discussed.

Better than my pride is your misfortune: the impact of schadenfreude on decision-making

Investigações anteriores relacionadas ao schadenfreude concentraram-se nos fatores que provocam o prazer no infortúnio do outro. A presente pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar o impacto do schadenfreude na tomada de decisão. Dois estudos (um em laboratório e uma em campo) abordam o impacto do schadenfreude em decisões realizadas no passado e no futuro em eventos desportivos. O primeiro estudo confronta sentimentos de orgulho em uma vitória do time favorito contra os sentimentos de perda schadenfreude de uma equipe rival. Os resultados mostraram que as pessoas preferiam enviar notícias sobre a vitória da equipe favorita (orgulho) ao invés da perda do time rival (schadenfreude) quando as diferenças de pontuação no jogo eram pequenas (por exemplo: time favorito 1 x 0 outro, contra, o time rival 0 x 1 favorito). No entanto, as pessoas eram mais propensas a fazer a escolha schadenfreude (por exemplo, escolher o envio de uma notícia sobre a derrota de um time rival) quando o resultado era alto (por exemplo, time favorito 5 x 0 rival, contra, time rival 0 x 5 favorito). O segundo estudo no campo examina como schadenfreude influencia a vontade de apostar contra um time rival. Para responder a esse problema, a preferência da equipe do participante é avaliada (Participantes que apoiam time alvo contra os que apoiam o rival). Uma manipulação de louvor é adicionada, tal que os consumidores vejam ou não um elogio à equipe alvo enquanto eles estão fazendo uma aposta sobre o resultado da partida. Os resultados mostram que os torcedores do time alvo não foram influenciados pela manipulação de louvor. No entanto, torcedores do time rival aumentaram sua probabilidade de aposta contra o time alvo (ou seja, mostraram um comportamento que envolve o schadenfreude) quando esta foi elogiada antes do jogo.

Decision making process: a comparison between the public and private sector

The problem of decision making, its mechanisms and consequences is the very core of management, it is virtually impossible to separate the act of manage from this knowledge area. As defined by Herbert Simon – "decision making" as though it were synonymous with "managing". A decision is a selection made by an individual regarding a choice of a conclusion about a situation. This represents a course of behavior pertaining to what must be done or what must not be done. A decision is the point at which plans, policies and objectives are translated into concrete actions. Our behavior during decisive moments is closely linked with our brain dominance profile. Over the years, our decision-making processes develop a consistent pattern, which can be described as a decision-making style. Our style is grounded in our preferences, which arise from our brain dominance characteristics […]. The importance of understanding the impact of our thinking preferences and how to improve the effectiveness as a leader of organizations are the main justifications for this thesis; the main problem addressed is the behavioral profile diversity in a selective Master’s cohort formed by students from several different countries. The research methodology approach has been quantitative, through questionnaire administration using the HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument), a validated framework developed by William "Ned" Herrmann when he was the leader of General Electric's Crotonville facility. This questionnaire has been administered in hundreds of thousands professional, enabling the possibility to establish correlations between a certain group and several historical databases. The selected group of analysis is the first cohort (23 students) from the CIM (Corporate International Master's), a joint program between Georgetown University (USA), ESADE (Spain) and FGV (Brazil). Besides decision preferences, the obtained profile enables the discussion on leadership style, heuristic's pitfalls and a base to compare with future cohorts. The fundamental research question is: how diverse is the dominant decision-making profile for the CIM students?

Corporate governance and its influence on the investment decision process of equity market's professionals: An inside view of how corporate governance issues influence the decision-making process of sell-side and buy-side professionals when analyzing Brazilian listed companies

Corporate governance has been in the spotlight for the past two decades, being subject of numerous researches all over the world. Governance is pictured as a broad and diverse theme, evolving through different routes to form distinct systems. This scenario together with 2 types of agency problems (investor vs. management and minorities vs. controlling shareholders) produce different definitions for governance. Usually, studies investigate whether corporate governance structures influence firm performance, and company valuation. This approach implies investors can identify those impacts and later take them into consideration when making investment decisions. However, behavioral finance theory shows that not always investors take rational decisions, and therefore the modus operandi of those professionals needs to be understood. So, this research aimed to investigate to what extent Brazilian corporate governance standards and practices influence the investment decision-making process of equity markets' professionals from the sell-side and buy-side. This exploratory study was carried out through qualitative and quantitative approaches. In the qualitative phase, 8 practitioners were interviewed and 3 dimensions emerged: understanding, pertinence and practice. Based on the interviews’ findings, a questionnaire was formulated and distributed to buy-siders and sell-siders that cover Brazilian stocks. 117 respondents from all over the world contributed to the study. The data obtained were analyzed through structural equation modeling and descriptive statistics. The 3 dimensions became 5 constructs: definition (institutionalized governance, informal governance), pertinence (relevance), practice (valuation process, structured governance assessment) The results of this thesis suggest there is no definitive answer, as the extent to which governance will influence an investment decision process will depend on a number of circumstances which compose the context. The only certainty is the need to present a “corporate governance behavior”, rather than simply establishing rules and regulations at firm and country level.

Winning in Brazil: how institutional voids affect the entry decision making process of foreign venture capital firms coming to Brazil

The master thesis for the achievement of the academic status master of science in international management (MPGI) will aim to solve the research question of how institutional voids affect the entry decision-making process of foreign venture capital firms coming to Brazil. This is a timely matter since in the past years there has been a sudden eruption of foreign VC involvement in Brazil. Based on the actionable framework by Khanna and Palpeu (2010) we conducted quantitative as well as qualitative research with two sets of interview partners in a two-phase analysis. We interviewed experts from VC firms, foreign VC firms based in Brazil and perspective VC firms that are looking to come to Brazil. We started with the former, derived lessons learned and analyzed how they affect the latter in reaching a decision. As we expected we found that depending on the industry that ventures are in, institutional voids can either pose an opportunity or a threat and hence attract or push away potential VC firms entering Brazil. Opportunities exist especially when exploiting institutional voids, for example through ventures in the marketplace efficiency. Threats are posed by investments in for instance hard infrastructure, where the economic, political and judicial systems as well as corruption and bureaucracy play demanding roles.

Increase in Hippocampal Theta Oscillations during Spatial Decision Making

The processing of spatial and mnemonic information is believed to depend on hippocampal theta oscillations (5–12 Hz). However, in rats both the power and the frequency of the theta rhythm are modulated by locomotor activity, which is a major confounding factor when estimating its cognitive correlates. Previous studies have suggested that hippocampal theta oscillations support decision-making processes. In this study, we investigated to what extent spatial decision making modulates hippocampal theta oscillations when controlling for variations in locomotion speed. We recorded local field potentials from the CA1 region of rats while animals had to choose one arm to enter for reward (goal) in a four-arm radial maze. We observed prominent theta oscillations during the decision-making period of the task, which occurred in the center of the maze before animals deliberately ran through an arm toward goal location. In speed-controlled analyses, theta power and frequency were higher during the decision period when compared to either an intertrial delay period (also at the maze center), or to the period of running toward goal location. In addition, theta activity was higher during decision periods preceding correct choices than during decision periods preceding incorrect choices. Altogether, our data support a cognitive function for the hippocampal theta rhythm in spatial decision making

The influence of the scout upon the decision-making process of recruited workers in three Acromyrmex species (Formicidae : Attini)

We examined how the information communicated by a scout worker influences the plant species transported by recruited workers in Acromymex balzani, Acromyrmex rugosus, and Acromyrmex crassispinus, three species of leaf-cutting ant that have different substrate and habitat preferences. We verified that certain plant species were more likely to be transported than others and that recruitment occurs. We found that recruited workers were more likely to transport non-preferred plant species when they were recruited to these by scout workers. The results suggest that the scout worker can communicate information about plant identity to recruited workers, but that recruited workers integrate the information communicated with their own experience during the decision-making process. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Decision-Making Tool for Knowledge-Based Projects in Offshore Production Systems

The development of an offshore field demands knowledge of many experts to choose the different components of an offshore production system. All the specialized parts of this knowledge are intrinsically related. The aim of this paper is to use Fuzzy Sets and knowledge-based systems to describe and formalize the phases of development of an offshore production system project, in order to share and to manage the required knowledge for carrying out a project, while at the same time proposing alternatives for the oil field configuration.

Information Visualization to support decision making in the context of distance learning: A study with VLE TelEduc

Digital data sets constitute rich sources of information, which can be extracted and evaluated applying computational tools, for example, those ones for Information Visualization. Web-based applications, such as social network environments, forums and virtual environments for Distance Learning, are good examples for such sources. The great amount of data has direct impact on processing and analysis tasks. This paper presents the computational tool Mapper, defined and implemented to use visual representations - maps, graphics and diagrams - for supporting the decision making process by analyzing data stored in Virtual Learning Environment TelEduc-Unesp. © 2012 IEEE.

The State, decision-making and planning in Latin America

Includes bibliography

Women's political participation and gender parity in decision-making at all levels in the Caribbean

Includes bibliography