The idea for this volume took root during a recent annual convention of the American Psychological Association. The contributors share a common vision of research in their particular area and have had an opportunity to debate and clarify their ideas. Taken as a whole, the fifteen chapters provide an exciting perspective of the field and form a basic set of readings for courses on individual and group decision making in a variety of disciplines. The coverage from basic laboratory research to complex applied group decision processes should challenge researchers and students to pursue the field of decision making as enthusiastic scientists and practitioners.
Communication and Group Decision-Making takes stock of recent group communication research - with an explicit focus on communication processes. This book is recommended for academics, professionals and researchers in communication and organization
A step-by-step guide to the most efficient and effective method for participatory group decision-making Are you frustrated by that common challenge called group decision-making? Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making can help! Clearly written and well organized, keep this book by your side and refer to it often. Groups you are part of will function better as a result. -- Peggy Holman, author, Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity For any group or organization to function effectively, it must be able to make decisions well. Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making is the first book to offer groups (and group facilitators) a clear and efficient path to generating widespread agreement while fostering full participation and true collaboration. Poised to become the new standard for group facilitation, Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making combines: Deep insight into complex group dynamics Effective conflict resolution techniques Powerful communication skills Groups using this simple, step-by-step approach experience increased cohesion and commitment and stronger relationships as a result of their successful cooperation. Incorporating the principles of collaboration, inclusion, empathy, and open-mindedness, the consensus-oriented decision-making (CODM) process encourages shared ownership of group decisions. The method can be used in any group situation, regardless of whether the final decision-making power rests with a single person or team, a vote of members, or unanimity. Business, government, nonprofit, social, and community organizations can all benefit from Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making . Whether you are a designated facilitator or an active participant, understanding this powerful framework will help you contribute to the success of your group through achieving maximum participation and efficiency, a clearer decision-making process, better decisions, and improved group dynamics. Tim Hartnett, PhD, is a group facilitator and mediator who blends extensive knowledge of non-violent communication with insightful understanding of group dynamics and effective techniques for conflict resolution.
This monograph is intended for an advanced undergraduate or graduate course of engineering and management science. as well as for persons in business. industry. military or in any field. who want an introductory and a capsule look into the methods of group decision making under multiple criteria. This is a sequel to our previous works entitled "Multiple Objective Decision Making--Methods and Applications (No. 164 of the Lecture Notes). and "Multiple Attribute Decision Making--Methods and Applications (No. 186 of the Lecture Notes). Moving from a single decision maker (the consideration of Lecture Notes 164 and 186) to a multiple decision maker setting introduces a great deal of complexity into the analysis. The problem is no longer the selection of the most preferred alternative among the nondominated solutions according to one individual's (single decision maker's) preference structure. The analysis is extended to account for the conflicts among different interest groups who have different objectives. goals. and so forth. Group decision making under multiple criteria includes such diverse and interconnected fields as preference analysis. utility theory. social choice theory. committee decision theory. theory of voting. game theory. expert evaluation analysis. aggregation of qualitative factors. economic equilibrium theory. etc; these are simplified and systematically classified for beginners. This work is to provide readers with a capsule look into the existing methods. their characteristics. and applicability in the complexity of group decision making.
Black & white print. Principles of Management is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of the introductory course on management. This is a traditional approach to management using the leading, planning, organizing, and controlling approach. Management is a broad business discipline, and the Principles of Management course covers many management areas such as human resource management and strategic management, as well as behavioral areas such as motivation. No one individual can be an expert in all areas of management, so an additional benefit of this text is that specialists in a variety of areas have authored individual chapters.
One of the main challenges facing contemporary society is to understand how people can make decisions together. Understanding Collective Decision Making builds on evolutionary theories and presents an analytical tool to analyse and visualise collective decision making. By combining theoretical research with real world case studies, the authors provide a coherent and conclusive solution to the often fragmented and dispersed literature on the subject.
A collection of 100 one-page tips for making thoughtful, equitable, lasting group decisions for our communities, organizations, governments, families, and our planet. Each tip is a provocative meditation and the book as a whole is a complete toolkit. The book is based on Caroline Estes' simple premise that "We each have a piece of the truth and we make our best decisions when we put all our pieces together." Freshley is a Quaker and while this book is not spiritually rooted, much of it is inspired by the Quaker idea of consensus. -- Publisher's description.
A best-seller in its first edition, Making Meetings Work: Achieving High Quality Group Decisions, Second Edition covers everything you need to know about organizing engaging meetings, including preparing agendas, controlling what happens behind the scenes prior to and after meetings, and managing conflicting values and personalities. Through the Meeting Masters Research Project at the University of Michigan, author John E. Tropman observed and interviewed the nation′s most successful meeting experts to find out how to make meetings both stimulating and productive. Based on his findings, Tropman formulated seven principles and fourteen commandments for implementing dynamic meetings. This second edition has been extensively revised and expanded to include Family meetings and family group decision making Problems and solutions for board of directors meetings Community and civic meetings Volunteers and meetings Leadership in community decision making Making Meetings Work: Achieving High Quality Group Decisions, Second Edition provides simple, easily applied best practices for supervising or instigating meetings with decision accomplishment outcomes. Author John E. Tropman reveals goal oriented procedures that keep proposals moving towards quality group decision making and assure other participants look forward to attending your meetings. Written with humor and a deep understanding of the realities of business and political life, Making Meetings Work: Achieving High Quality Group Decisions, Second Edition is an extraordinary resource for anyone who leads, facilitates, or attends meetings.
Management science is a di scipl ine dedicated to the development of techniques that enable decision makers to cope with the increasing complexity of our world. The early burst of excitement which was spawned by the development and successful applications of linear programming to problems in both the public and private sectors has challenged researchers to develop even more sophisticated methods to deal with the complex nature of decision making. Sophistication, however, does not always trans 1 ate into more complex mathematics. Professor Thomas L. Saaty was working for the U. S. Defense Department and for the U. S. Department of State in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In these positions, Professor Saaty was exposed to some of the most complex decisions facing the world: arms control, the Middle East problem, and the development of a transport system for a Third World country. While having made major contributions to numerous areas of mathematics and the theory of operations research, he soon realized that one did not need complex mathematics to come to grips with these decision problems, just the right mathematics! Thus, Professor Saaty set out to develop a mathematically-based technique for analyzing complex situations which was sophisticated in its simplicity. This technique became known as the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and has become very successful in helping decision makers to structure and analyze a wide range of problems.
In The Origins of Collective Decision Making, Andy Blunden identifies three paradigms of collective decision making – Counsel, Majority and Consensus, discovers their origins in traditional, medieval and modern times, and traces their evolution over centuries up to the present. The study reveals that these three paradigms have an ethical foundation, deeply rooted in historical experiences. The narrative takes the reader into the very moments when individual leaders and organisers made the crucial developments in white heat of critical moments in history, such as the English Revolution of the 1640s, the Chartist Movement of the 1840s and the early Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. This history provides a valuable resource for resolving current social movement conflict over decision making.
