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.
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.
Individual decision making can often be wrong due to misinformation, impulses, or biases. Collective decision making, on the other hand, can be surprisingly accurate. In Democratic Reason, Hélène Landemore demonstrates that the very factors behind the superiority of collective decision making add up to a strong case for democracy. She shows that the processes and procedures of democratic decision making form a cognitive system that ensures that decisions taken by the many are more likely to be right than decisions taken by the few. Democracy as a form of government is therefore valuable not only because it is legitimate and just, but also because it is smart. Landemore considers how the argument plays out with respect to two main mechanisms of democratic politics: inclusive deliberation and majority rule. In deliberative settings, the truth-tracking properties of deliberation are enhanced more by inclusiveness than by individual competence. Landemore explores this idea in the contexts of representative democracy and the selection of representatives. She also discusses several models for the "wisdom of crowds" channeled by majority rule, examining the trade-offs between inclusiveness and individual competence in voting. When inclusive deliberation and majority rule are combined, they beat less inclusive methods, in which one person or a small group decide. Democratic Reason thus establishes the superiority of democracy as a way of making decisions for the common good.
"This book focuses on how groups can structure their activities toward making better decisions or in developing technologies for the support of decision-making in groups"--Provided by publisher.
Geographical Information Systems, Three Volume Set is a computer system used to capture, store, analyze and display information related to positions on the Earth’s surface. It has the ability to show multiple types of information on multiple geographical locations in a single map, enabling users to assess patterns and relationships between different information points, a crucial component for multiple aspects of modern life and industry. This 3-volumes reference provides an up-to date account of this growing discipline through in-depth reviews authored by leading experts in the field. VOLUME EDITORS Thomas J. Cova The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States Ming-Hsiang Tsou San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, United States Georg Bareth University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany Chunqiao Song University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States Yan Song University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States Kai Cao National University of Singapore, Singapore Elisabete A. Silva University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom Covers a rapidly expanding discipline, providing readers with a detailed overview of all aspects of geographic information systems, principles and applications Emphasizes the practical, socioeconomic applications of GIS Provides readers with a reliable, one-stop comprehensive guide, saving them time in searching for the information they need from different sources
Find out what your customers and employees are really thinking with this indispensable resource Scaling Conversations: How Leaders Access the Full Potential of People delivers invaluable strategies for how leaders can make their communications more inclusive and access the voices of those employees who rarely feel empowered to speak up. As constituent numbers scale, leaders have traditionally struggled to make communications a conversation with the entire organization, settling instead for small focus groups, talking at people in town halls, and delivering surveys after the fact. The result is exclusive, narrow decision-making that disengages and under-utilizes talent and human capital. And now, as the remote environment grows, the challenge and imperative for engaging conversations on a wider scale is even greater. Scaling Conversations provides the solution. Having led a remote team for over a decade and having worked with thousands of leaders across North America, Dave MacLeod teaches you how to: Scale your business by listening to the voices that really matter Access and maximize the human capital in your organization Make decisions that create unity and move the group forward Decrease employee turnover caused by poor communication Within these pages, you'll learn how to better facilitate conversations with a wider and more representative array of clients and employees, and not just the loudest ones in the town hall meeting or Slack channel. Perfect for any leader who's responsible for understanding what employees are really feeling and thinking, Scaling Conversations also belongs on the bookshelves of anyone who wants to learn how to discover what the “silent majority,” who are often drowned out by the loudest people in the room, actually believes.
This handbook provides an authoritative, up-to-date overview of the social psychology of group processes. The topics covered include group decisions, juries, group remembering, roles, status, leadership, social identity and group membership, socialization, group performance, negotiation and bargaining, emotion and mood, computer-mediated communication, organizations and mental health. Provides an authoritative, up-to-date overview of the social psychology of group processes. Written by leading researchers from around the world to provide a classic and current overview of research as well as providing a description of future trends within the area. Includes coverage of group decisions, juries, group remembering, roles, status, leadership, social identity and group membership, socialization, group performance, negotiation and bargaining, emotion and mood, computer-mediated communication, organizations and mental health. Essential reading for any serious scholar of group behavior. Now available in full text online via xreferplus, the award-winning reference library on the web from xrefer. For more information, visit www.xreferplus.com
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 study is a result of three continuous years of fieldwork in a hamlet in rural Japan. The data presented and analyzed here consist of records from participant observation, formal and informal interviews, casual conversation and formal questionnaires, and public and private documents. The subject of this research is group decision making, and the results of this process are, after all, a matter of public record. The major conclusions of this study are outlined in their simplest and most straightforward form. A hamlet is fundamentally a nexus for the organization of productive exchange among member households, the form of exchange through which two or more parties actively combine their resources to produce something of value not available, or as cheaply available, to any of them separately. Defection from productive exchange agreements by hamlet members is reduced by making access to future valuable transactions and corporate property contingent upon the integrity of each current exchange transaction. This method of combining a common interest in production with contingent access to productive resources is termed mutual investment and is the major source of consensus in hamlet decision making. When only cooperate resources are at issue, decisions regularly result in unanimity. When a course of action can be implemented only if hamlet members relinquish control over individually held resources, a division will emerge among the membership. Whether or not a formal vote is taken, the distribution of differing opinion will be known through more informal means of communication. In all cases of division, by the time the course of action to be implemented is formally announced, the minority in opposition will be extremely small. The question then must be resolved whether those in the minority will participate in the implementation or resign as hamlet members. This book is written with two rather disparate audiences in mind: readers interested primarily in exchange and decision-making phenomenon, on the one hand, and readers interested primarily in the unity of experience represented by the Japanese sensibility, on the other.
