Negotiation in strategy making teams : group support systems and the process of cognitive change

This paper reports on the use of a Group Support System (GSS) to explore at a micro level some of the processes manifested when a group is negotiating strategy-processes of social and psychological negotiation. It is based on data from a series of interventions with senior management teams of three operating companies comprising a multi-national organization, and with a joint meeting subsequently involving all of the previous participants. The meetings were concerned with negotiating a new strategy for the global organization. The research involved the analysis of detailed time series data logs that exist as a result of using a GSS that is a reflection of cognitive theory

Project management between will and representation

This article challenges some deep-rooted assumptions of project management. Inspired by the work of the German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, it calls for looking at projects through two complementary lenses: one that accounts for cognitive and representational aspects and one that accounts for material and volitional aspects. Understanding the many ways in which these aspects transpire and interact in projects sheds new light on project organizations, as imperfect and fragile representations that chase a shifting nexus of intractable human, social, technical, and material processes. This, in turn, can bring about a new grasp of notions such as value,\ud knowledge, complexity, and risk

Verification and validation issues in a generic model of electro-optic sensor systems

In general, questions of model credibility introduce more problems in a generic model than they do in models developed for one specific application since a generic formulation must allow for many applications of the model. This paper addresses the issues of model testing, verification and validation for a generic electro-optic sensor system model. A structural approach to testing, verification and validation is proposed that builds increasing confidence through bottom-up testing, structured verification procedures and carefully selected validation metrics. These metrics are based on a geometrical view of model outputs that may be compared with measurements using qualitative methods or quantitative approaches involving image processing, artificial neural networks or fuzzy pattern recognition. The advantage over traditional validation methods is most marked in the case of complex models with many key quantities where it not only provides insight about the validity but also about sensitivities. These validation tools have been applied, in conjunction with more traditional metrics, to the testing, verification and validation of the generic model configured as a thermal imager system

Strategic options development and analysis

Strategic Options Development and Analysis (SODA) enables a group or individual to construct a graphical representation (map) or a problematic situation, and thus explore options and their ramifications with respect to a complex system of goals or objectives. In addition the approach aims to help groups arrive at a negotiated agreement about how to act to resolve the situation. It is based upon the use of causal mapping – a formally constructed means-ends network. Because the map has been constructed using the natural language of the problem owners it becomes a model of the situation that is ‘owned’ by those who define the problem. The use of formalities for the construction of the model makes it amenable to a range of analyses encouraging reflection and a deeper understanding. These analyses can be used in a ‘rough and ready’ manner by visual inspection or through the use of specialist causal mapping software. Each of the analyses helps a group or individual discover important features of the problem situation. And these features facilitate agreeing a good solution. The SODA process is aimed at helping a group learn about the situation they face before they reach agreements. Most significantly the exploration through the causal map leads to a higher probability of more creative solutions and promotes solutions that are more likely to be implemented because the problem construction process is more likely to include richer social dimensions about the blockages to action and organizational change. The basic theories that inform SODA derive from cognitive psychology and social negotiation, where the model acts as a continuously changing representation of the problematic situation (a transitional object) – changing as the views of a person or group shift through learning and exploration. This chapter jointly written by two leading practitioner academics and the original developers of SODA, Colin Eden and Fran Ackermann, describe the SODA approach as it is applied in practice

Group cognitive mapping: a methodology and system for capturing and evaluating managerial and organizational cognition

Organizations would like to capture and merge the perceptions of key individuals into an organizational memory. Various cognitive mapping approaches have been used to identify and capture these perceptions. However, merging the cognitive maps of individuals into a collective cognitive map to represent the shared perceptions has been problematic. Due to the merging problems, the creation of collective cognitive maps is impractical for many organizational situations. In this paper, we describe and demonstrate a cognitive mapping based methodology and system that eliminates the merging problem, supports data collection, and provides data analyses to uncover both individual and collective cognitive maps.Cognitive mapping Managerial and organizational cognition Group support systems Group decision-making

Software Innovations to Support the Use of Social Media by Emergency Managers

Although social media (SM) can be very useful for emergency managers (EMs), especially for providing situational awareness in the early stages of a disaster, many do not use it. This study is based on 477 responses to an online survey of U.S. county-level EMs. The two most important barriers to the use of SM for collecting information are lack of staff and fears of information overload. A number of potential software enhancements that could help overcome the limitations of SM for EMs were all rated as highly useful. Factor analyses were successfully performed on the sets of questions about barriers and about software enhancements. The barrier of trustworthiness of SM data was a significant predictor of usefulness of some of the enhancement factors. Differences related to characteristics of the respondents and their agencies are explored, and open-ended comments that help to explain the findings are summarized