EURO Journal on Decision Processes最新文献

This contribution proposes an application of the SOMERSET-P platform for strategic environmental assessment of regional planning scenarios related to the municipality of Ste-Claire (Quebec, Canada). The platform combines spatial analysis and multicriteria decision-aid support and is supplied with data from several stakeholder expectations and planning issues. Stakeholders are modeled according to the following five groups: “Owners” (civil administration representatives), Farmers, Foresters, Environmentalists, and Neo-rural dwellers. Each scenario was built according to a hierarchy of planning objectives. Scenarios were assessed in accordance with 12 decision criteria and related indicators of performance. The spatial translation and spatial analysis of the territorial impacts of the scenarios are performed within the ArcGIS geographic information system. These scenarios were integrated into multicriteria and multi-stakeholders analysis software implementing the PROMETHEE/GAIA methodology. Four elements were computed to support the stakeholder negotiations and decision analysis: scenario strengths and weaknesses, individual and multi-stakeholder scenario rankings, and visual analysis of conflicts and synergies between criteria, and between stakeholders. Results suggest that a potential compromise is located in-between the full economic growth and the ecological scenarios. Since regional planning processes are becoming increasingly complex with time due to the group polarization and the emergence of conflictual societal value schemes among stakeholders hierarchical and networked relations approaches involving multiple stakeholders like this one are fully justified in the future.

The worldwide trend of urbanization, the rising needs of individuals, and the continuous growth of e-commerce lead to increasing urban delivery activities, which are a substantial driver of traffic and pollution in cities. Due to rising public pressure, emission-reducing measures are increasingly likely to be introduced. Such measures can cover diesel bans or even entire car-free zones, causing drastic effects on delivery networks in urban areas. As an option to reduce the risk of a regulation-induced shock, we present a resilience-oriented network and fleet optimization. We propose an innovative parcel delivery concept for last mile delivery (LMD) operations and develop an optimization model to support tactical planning decisions. Our model minimizes overall operating costs by determining optimal locations for micro depots and it allocates transport vehicles to them. An adjustable CO₂-threshold and external costs are included to consider potential regulatory restrictions by city authorities. We implement our model into a decision support system (DSS) that allows analyzing and comparing different scenarios. We provide a computational study by evaluating and discussing our DSS with an example of a mid-sized German city. Our results and findings demonstrate the trade-off between cost and emission minimization by quantifying the impacts of various fleet compositions. The proposed logistics concept represents an option to achieve environmentally friendly, cost-efficient, and resilient LMD of parcels.

Zeuthen–Hicks bargaining provides a dynamic model that explains how two parties in a negotiation make concessions to reach the Nash bargaining solution. However, it is not clear whether this process will always reach the global optimum corresponding to the Nash bargaining solution, or could end at a local optimum, or even in disagreement. In this paper, we analyze different types of utility functions, both analytically and in a computational study, to determine under which circumstances convergence to the Nash bargaining solution will be achieved. We show that non-standard preferences, involving, e.g., reference point effects, might indeed lead to multiple local optima of the Nash bargaining objective function and thus failure of the bargaining process. This occurs more often if expectations of parties are mutually incompatible.

This paper discusses concepts that might shape, extend, limit or re-focus an agent’s set of options that can then be thought of as that particular agent’s potential in terms of their ways forward and degrees of freedom. Because there is no unambiguous word that conveys the meaning of this higher order concept of choice-making, the term “choose-able” has been adopted in order to distinguish it from the usual decision concepts known as choice or option. An agent’s choose-ables are defined as the imagined deemed possible ways forward, that the agent has to construct, compose or create before they can choose. The central concept of a choose-able is a very powerful one if only it could be surfaced and made explicit. It is often only possible to make inferences about the nature of choose-ables after observing the actions taken once a choice has been made. Drama theory formally develops this kind of inferencing and provided a foundation for this paper as it explores the relational realms of options. The paper presents a funnelling construct and then draws together Catastrophe theory and Culture theory to offer new ways of analysing the shaping effects of relational contexts on an agent’s choose-ables that then act as a medium through which agents are drawn to make choices and carry out observable actions. The strength of the combination of the theories lies in their descriptive power of subjective, relational concepts that hitherto have tended to remain hidden and tacit.

The strength of sanctions can significantly impact the outcome of a dispute. The effectiveness of economic sanctions will be explored within the context of the conflict between Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and US shale oil producers in 2014. The outcome was not what OPEC anticipated, perhaps because OPEC misperceived the opponent’s preferences. Sensitivity to sanctions is a major component of a decision maker’s preferences when a dispute, or a negotiation, is modeled within the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution (GMCR). This study uses Inverse GMCR to determine what preference rankings would be required for the conflict to end as OPEC wished. The difference between the original preference ranking and the required rankings reflects the miscalculation of the strength of the economic “squeeze” that OPEC imposed when it flooded the market with oil to reduce the price. OPEC expected this sanction to be strong enough to damage, and perhaps destroy, the shale industry, but shale producers were able to withstand it. The graph model analysis suggests why this conflict ended as it did, and provides guidelines for understanding whether sanctions can be effective in forcing a particular outcome on a dispute.

Negotiation by veto is introduced as a novel negotiation approach and as an alternative to the exchange of offers. Rather than proposing offers, negotiators following the negotiation by veto approach eliminate unfavorable settlement options from the set of possible agreements until they eventually achieve a mutual acceptable solution. It is argued that this approach could lead to superior negotiation outcomes and improve negotiators’ satisfaction. In an experiment with student participants the performance of offer and veto negotiation procedures is compared. In simple negotiation problems both negotiation procedures reach similar outcomes. In complex negotiation problems negotiation by veto achieves fewer but better agreements. However, participants were more satisfied with the negotiation process, outcome and their opponent’s behavior when exchanging offers rather than vetoing alternatives.

Rebates are commonly used as one of the most important short-term promotion tactics in retailing industries. In this paper, we study a platform-based retail system consisting of a retail platform who provides a retail facility and a product seller who sells products through the retail platform. The seller pays rent and also a percentage of his revenue to the platform as commissions for using the facility and services of the platform. In a promotion program, both the retail platform and the seller have strategic options of either offering rebates individually or launching a joint rebate. The parties are free to choose their rebate amounts, if any, and their decisions are, therefore, handled as endogenous decisions in our model. We investigate the optimal rebate strategies and performance of each party in the retail system analytically. Research results show that, given an exogenous retail price and a commission rate, the platform and the seller may choose a unilateral rebate or a joint-rebate program. For any log-concave demand function, we prove that an equilibrium on rebates of the platform and the seller exists and is unique. Furthermore, several managerial insights are presented with regard to the selection of rebate programs. Finally, we address the endogenous pricing problem as an extension of the original problem.

A hybrid procedure for group multiple criteria decision analysis is introduced that consolidates a moderated Delphi process with an autonomous aggregation–disaggregation mechanism. The research is based on the assumption that both consolidated approaches can lead to synergistic effects when properly combined. The paper justifies the hybrid procedure by comparing the three approaches, and by assessing it with a preliminary case study that is based on several factors of a universal framework for the evaluation of group decision-making methods and systems. These factors address convergence of the decision-making process, conflict resolution and cognitive complexity. The paper aims to define the decision-making process completely and thoroughly, fully operationalize all steps of the hybrid procedure algorithmically and methodologically and provide an application of the procedure. The application shows that the process converges and imposes acceptable cognitive load on the decision-makers, which implies that the hybrid procedure is able to perform efficiently.

We address the following basic question: How should parties, with possibly different risk-attitudes and beliefs, who are contemplating creating a partnership, divide uncertain future profits? We assume that the formula for division of profits is a result of negotiations, and model it via the Nash-bargaining-like solution (NBLS). After characterizing the optimal contract, using calculus of variations, we assume a linear contract and find its optimal parameters for various cases of interest. We also consider the implications of an asymmetric NBLS.