scholarly journals Collective intelligence or groupthink? Group decision making under the Japanese Companies Act

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daisuke Asaoka
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Boards Of Directors ◽  
Organizational Design ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Behavioural Science ◽  
Individual Decisions ◽  
Japanese Companies ◽  
Start Ups

Japanese corporate law (the Companies Act) requires that boards have three or more directors, and thus makes group decision making obligatory within firms. But according to some observers, boards of directors are often a mere formality in Japan, especially for non-public and small-to-medium-sized firms. The literature of behavioural science shows that group decision making does not necessarily produce better outcomes than individual decisions. In fact, a model of a group decision making shows that it can cause underinvestment at firms. The three-or-more requirement was formed with path dependency dating back to the late 19th century when Japan transplanted legal systems from overseas, but it was by no means the standard. Giving managers flexibility in organizational design is desirable in that it can accommodate firms’ internal characteristics and tendencies and facilitate the establishment of start-ups, new subsidiaries and joint ventures.

scholarly journals A new measure of group decision-making efficiency

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng-Ju Hsieh ◽  
Mario Fifić ◽  
Cheng-Ta Yang
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Detection Task ◽  
Detection Sensitivity ◽  
System Level ◽  
Workload Capacity ◽  
Individual Decisions ◽  
Collective Benefit

Abstract It has widely been accepted that aggregating group-level decisions is superior to individual decisions. As compared to individuals, groups tend to show a decision advantage in their response accuracy. However, there has been a lack of research exploring whether group decisions are more efficient than individual decisions with a faster information-processing speed. To investigate the relationship between accuracy and response time (RT) in group decision-making, we applied systems’ factorial technology, developed by Townsend and Nozawa (Journal of Mathematical Psychology 39, 321–359, 1995) and regarded as a theory-driven methodology, to study the information-processing properties. More specifically, we measured the workload capacity CAND(t), which only considers the correct responses, and the assessment function of capacity AAND(t), which considers the speed-accuracy trade-off, to make a strong inference about the system-level processing efficiency. A two-interval, forced-choice oddball detection task, where participants had to detect which interval contains an odd target, was conducted in Experiment 1. Then, in Experiment 2, a yes/no Gabor detection task was adopted, where participants had to detect the presence of a Gabor patch. Our results replicated previous findings using the accuracy-based measure: Group detection sensitivity was better than the detection sensitivity of the best individual, especially when the two individuals had similar detection sensitivities. On the other hand, both workload capacity measures, CAND(t) and AAND(t), showed evidence of supercapacity processing, thus suggesting a collective benefit. The ordered relationship between accuracy-based and RT-based collective benefit was limited to the AAND(t) of the correct and fast responses, which may help uncover the processing mechanism behind collective benefits. Our results suggested that AAND(t), which combines both accuracy and RT into inferences, can be regarded as a novel and diagnostic tool for studying the group decision-making process.

scholarly journals Groups Make Better Self-Interested Decisions

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 157-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Charness ◽  
Matthias Sutter
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Economic Behavior ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Individual Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Limitations ◽  
Individual Decisions

In this paper, we describe what economists have learned about differences between group and individual decision-making. This literature is still young, and in this paper, we will mostly draw on experimental work (mainly in the laboratory) that has compared individual decision-making to group decision-making, and to individual decision-making in situations with salient group membership. The bottom line emerging from economic research on group decision-making is that groups are more likely to make choices that follow standard game-theoretic predictions, while individuals are more likely to be influenced by biases, cognitive limitations, and social considerations. In this sense, groups are generally less “behavioral” than individuals. An immediate implication of this result is that individual decisions in isolation cannot necessarily be assumed to be good predictors of the decisions made by groups. More broadly, the evidence casts doubts on traditional approaches that model economic behavior as if individuals were making decisions in isolation.

Framing Effects in Group Investment Decision Making: Role of Group Polarization

2008 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 283-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pi-Yueh Cheng ◽  
Wen-Bin Chiou
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Investment Decision ◽  
Framing Effects ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Group Decisions ◽  
Group Polarization ◽  
Relative Preference ◽  
Individual Decisions

Prospect theory proposes that framing effects result in a preference for risk-averse choices in gain situations and risk-seeking choices in loss situations. However, in group polarization situations, groups show a pronounced tendency to shift toward more extreme positions than those they initially held. Whether framing effects in group decision making are more prominent as a result of the group-polarization effect was examined. Purposive sampling of 120 college students (57 men, 63 women; M age = 20.1 yr., SD = 0.9) allowed assessment of relative preference between cautious and risky choices in individual and group decisions. Findings indicated that both group polarization and framing effects occur in investment decisions. More importantly, group decisions in a gain situation appear to be more cautious, i.e., risk averse, than individual decisions, whereas group decisions in the loss situation appear to be more risky than individual decisions. Thus, group decision making may expand framing effects when it comes to investment choices through group polarization.

scholarly journals The Global Response to COVID-19 as an Example of a One-Sided Problem Definition in the Absence of General Collective Intelligence

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy E Williams
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mathematical Models ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Negative Outcomes ◽  
Global Response ◽  
Risk Of Mortality

Problem definitions are defined here as one-sided in the case that while they might take into account one class of negative outcomes, such as those associated with the problem, at the same time they might ignore other classes of negative outcomes, such as those that may be encountered while implementing interventions that try to avoid the problem. An example is amputating all limbs with potentially cancerous moles on them to reduce the risk of mortality due to cancer as much as possible, without considering the increase in mortality due to the amputations. The global response to COVID-19 has been characterized by the availability of mathematical models for the potential mortality due to the spread of the pandemic. However in some cases the researchers guiding the responses of their respective nations with their mathematical models have explicitly pointed out that corresponding mathematical models of the impacts of economic shutdowns or other potential interventions on mortality have not been incorporated, and that there is a critical need to include such models. This paper generalizes this problem of one-sided problem definitions past the COVID-19 response to a wide variety of group problems where the pattern of one-sidedness applies, and explores how in current group decision-making systems one-sided problem definitions might consistently tend to be exploited in a way that is detrimental to collective well-being, as well as how a system of group decision-making meeting the requirements of a General Collective Intelligence solves the problem of one-sidedness to reliably maximize collective well-being.

scholarly journals Anytime Collaborative Brain-Computer Interfaces for Enhancing Group Decision-Making in Realistic Environments

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saugat Bhattacharyya ◽  
Davide Valeriani ◽  
Caterina Cinel ◽  
Luca Citi ◽  
Riccardo Poli
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Brain Computer Interfaces ◽  
Appearance Time ◽  
Computer Interfaces ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Individual Decisions

Abstract In this paper we present and test collaborative Brain-Computer Interfaces (cBCIs) that can significantly increase both the speed and the accuracy of group decision-making in realistic situations. The key distinguishing features of this work are: (1) our cBCIs combine behavioural, physiological and neural data in such a way as to be able to provide a group decision at any time after the quickest team member casts their vote, but the quality of a cBCI-assisted decision improves monotonically the longer the group decision can wait; (2) we apply our cBCIs to two realistic scenarios of military relevance (patrolling a dark corridor and manning an outpost at night where users need to identify any unidentified characters that appear) in which decisions are based on information conveyed through video feeds; and (3) our cBCIs exploit Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) elicited in brain activity by the appearance of potential threats but, uniquely, the appearance time is estimated automatically by the system (rather than being unrealistically provided to it). As a result of these elements, groups assisted by our cBCIs make both more accurate and faster decisions than when individual decisions are integrated in more traditional manners.

scholarly journals COVID-19 and The Hidden Cost of Reduced Civil Liberties

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy E Williams
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Martial Law ◽  
Group Outcomes ◽  
Hidden Cost ◽  
Decision Making System ◽  
The Cost

The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak that emerged from Wuhan, China in 2020 has seen unprecedented restrictions on civilian populations in many countries in the attempt to curtail the spread of the pandemic. A recently developed model of general collective intelligence predicts the properties of group decision-making systems that are required to optimize collective outcomes, along with predicting that authoritarian systems of decision-making might tend to be restricted to non-optimal group outcomes in ways that are somewhat hidden in that they require an understanding of this new and relatively unknown model of general collective intelligence. In light of this model of general collective intelligence, the economic restrictions imposed to combat the pandemic take on a new light, since these restrictions have not only resulted in economic lockdowns for some countries, but in some cases have also effectively imposed martial law. The hidden cost of this reduction in civil liberties is explored from the perspective of the cost of an authoritarian decision-making system resulting in non-optimal group outcomes as theorized by this model of general collective intelligence, using models of government inefficiency to assess the cost of those non-optimal group outcomes, and therefore the hidden cost of reduced civil liberties.

Group Decision Making in a Corruption Experiment: China and Germany Compared

2015 ◽  
Vol 235 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Frank ◽  
Sha Li ◽  
Christoph Bühren ◽  
Haiying Qin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Gender Composition ◽  
Versus Group ◽  
Decision Context ◽  
Individual Decisions ◽  
Mixed Gender

Summary Much hope is put into the ‘‘four eyes principle’’ as an anti corruption device in many countries. However, as recent cases have shown, entire groups of decision makers can be corrupt as well. This paper reports on an experimental investigation of individual versus group decision making in a corruption experiment. We find that the group decisions, as compared to individual decisions, lead to a higher level of corruption, for bribers and for bribees, and in China as well as in Germany. Only German women are less corrupt in a group decision context than when deciding individually. Further differences between Germany and China with respect to the effect of the teams’ gender composition were found. In Germany, groups that consist only of females are the most honest and the male groups are the most corrupt, whereas in China the groups with mixed gender combination have shown a higher inclination to make corrupt decisions than the groups that are homogenous with respect to gender.

scholarly journals General Collective Intelligence and the Constraints to Group Decision-Making

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy E Williams
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
General Problem ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Group Problem ◽  
Group Problem Solving ◽  
Decision Systems

This paper addresses the question of how current group decision-making systems, including collective intelligence algorithms, might be constrained in ways that prevent them from achieving general problem solving ability. And as a result of those constraints, how some collective issues that pose existential risks such as poverty, the environmental degradation that has linked to climate change, or other sustainable development goals, might not be reliably solvable with current decision-making systems. This paper then addresses the question that assuming specific categories of such existential problems are not currently solvable with any existing group decision-systems, how can decision-systems increase the general problem solving ability of groups so that such issues can reliably be solved? In particular, how might a General Collective Intelligence, defined here to be a system of group decision-making with general problem solving ability, facilitate this increase in group problem-solving ability? The paper then presents some boundary conditions that a framework for modeling general problem solving in groups suggests must be satisfied by any model of General Collective Intelligence. When generalized to apply to all group decision-making, any such constraints on group intelligence, and any such system of General Collective Intelligence capable of removing those constraints, are then applicable to any process that utilizes group problem solving, from design, to manufacturing or any other life-cycle processes of any product or service, or whether research in any field from the arts to the basic sciences. For this reason these questions are important to a wide variety of academic disciplines. And because many of the issues impacted represent existential risks to human civilization, these questions may also be important by to all by definition.

scholarly journals The Need for General Collective Intelligence in Addressing the Sustainable Development Goals

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy E Williams
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Group Decision Making ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Group Decision ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Collective Impact ◽  
Optimal Solutions ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Goals

Abstract Background: This study explores the factors constraining group decision-making, where those factors might tend to restrict groups from selecting optimal solutions with regards to sustainability or sustainable development. This study also explores the factors constraining group decision-making from framing problems in the optimal way (choosing the optimal problem to solve), and how together these factors constraining groups from choosing the optimal problem to solve or the optimal solution to solve it with, might tend to bar groups from achieving optimal outcomes. To address the first set of constraints, collective intelligence algorithms aim to use the intelligence of crowds to select optimal solutions. To address the second set of constraints, General Collective Intelligence solutions, as defined in this paper, aim to further improve outcomes by selecting the optimal problem to solve.Results: In the absence of General Collective Intelligence fundamental economic forces are suggested to drive a continual increase in the alignment of group decision-making with the interests of decision-makers rather than with optimizing collective impact. And while sustainability and sustainable development might be achieved locally in the face of this misalignment, globally this misalignment is suggested to compete directly against that achievement. For this reason, maximizing collective outcomes such as impact on sustainability or sustainable development is suggested to require General Collective Intelligence in order to reliably increase the forces driving groups towards prioritizing collective impact until those forces are greater than the forces driving this misalignment. As a result, without General Collective Intelligence this misalignment of group decision-making in a direction other than optimal collective impact is suggested to be a hidden "bug" that may prevent sustainability and sustainable development from being reliably achievable globally through current sustainability or sustainable development programs.Conclusions: General Collective Intelligence is a pattern of biomimicry that potentially replicates the robust and stable multi-cellular cooperation nature has evolved over more than a billion years to enable cells in organisms to cooperate to sustainably achieve outcomes. Platforms organizing groups into such a General Collective Intelligence are suggested to be required in order for sustainability or the sustainable development goals to be reliably achievable globally.

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