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    A formal model of emotional-response, inspired from human cognition and emotion systems
    (Massey University, 2006) Dadgostar, F.; Sarrafzadeh, A.
    In this paper, we used the formalisms of decision-making theory and theories in psychology, physiology and cognition to proposing a macro model of human emotional-response. We believe that using such formalism can fill the gap between psychology, cognitive science and AI, and can be useful in the design of human-like agents. This model can be used in a wide variety of applications such as artificial agents, user interface, and intelligent tutoring systems. Using the proposed model, we can provide for human behaviors like mood, personality and biological response in machines. This capability will enable such systems, to adapt their responses and behaviors. In situations where there are multiple ways for performing an action, this model can help with the decision making process.
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    Decision making in the evaluation, selection and implementation of ERP systems
    (Massey University, 2000) Shakir, Maha
    The evaluation, selection and implementation (ESI) of ERP systems involve making multiple decisions during the lifecycle of the ERP project. This study tries to map six models of decision-making to the ERP project lifecycle, which is conceptualized using case study data for a health service provider organization in New Zealand. ERP projects are deemed strategic projects for which success or failure has a great impact on the organization. Gaining an understanding of the decision-making process during the life of the project helps in better preparations and planning before and during each phase. Findings suggest that some decision-making models apply to the stages of evaluation, selection and implementation while others are missing. The three models that apply are the administrative, adaptive and political models. This study aids practitioners in better planning and implementation of ERP projects through better understanding the decision-making process. A benefit to academics is in providing new insights for ERP systems implementation, an area where little research is conducted.
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    An ES process framework for understanding the strategic decision making process of ES implementations
    (Massey University, 2001) Shakir, Maha
    Enterprise systems (ES) implementations are regarded costly, time and resource consuming and have a great impact on the organization in terms of the risks they involve and the opportunities they provide. The steering committee (SC) represents the group of individuals who is responsible for making strategic decisions throughout the ES implementation lifecycle. It is evident from recent studies that there is a relationship between the decision making process and ES implementation success. One of the key elements that contribute to the success of ES implementations is a quick decision making process (Brown and Vessey, 1999; Gupta, 2000; Parr, et al., 1999). This study addresses the strategic decision-making process by SC through its focus on four research questions (1) How can the strategic decision-making process in the implementation of ES be better understood, during each phase of the ES implementation lifecycle? (2) What is the process by which the SC makes strategic decisions? (3) How are fast decisions made? and (4) How does decision speed link to the success of ES implementation? Process models of ES implementation will provide a framework to investigate the strategic decision making process during each phases of the ES implementation lifecycle. Patterns in the decision making process will be explored using strategic choice models. This study develops a research model that focuses on the decision making process by steering committee to explore research questions. It concludes with identifying contributions to both IS research and business practitioners.
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    Two pilots may be safer than one: The effect of group discussion on perceived invulnerability
    (2011) Gilbey, Andrew; Lee, Seung Yong
    Although most general aviation (GA) pilots have received training in aviation decision making, one of the most common causes of GA accidents remains a pilot’s decision to press-on with a flight, when the safe decision was to turn back or divert (Federal Aviation Authority, 2002). Presumably, pilots press-on because they assume it is safe to do so, rather than because they are foolhardy. One reason pilots press-on may be because they underestimate the inherent risks. Indeed, research into the area of perceived invulnerability (PI) suggests that many pilots perceive themselves to be invulnerable to negative outcomes and that this predicts the kinds of behaviour likely to increase the chance of accident or incident (Isenberg, 1986). For more than 40 years, psychologists have been aware that decisions made by groups of people tend to polarise the views of individuals (O’Hare & Smitheram, 1995). Thus, if individuals make decisions that are risky, the decisions made in groups will tend to be more risky than those made by individuals. In aviation, this has potentially serious implications for flights where there are two pilots rather than one, because if individual pilots’ are susceptible to PI, then when there are two pilots PI may increase. Data collected earlier (Lee & Gilbey, 2010), which in a preliminary analysis found no effect of group polarisation on PI, was reanalysed to investigate whether an effect of group polarisation would be observed when both members of a pair of pilots exhibit PI. (Previously, all pilots had been included, regardless of whether they exhibited PI.) The sample were seventy-eight GA pilots, recruited from seven different flight training organisations in the North Island of New Zealand (14 female, 64 male; ages 18 to 59 years (M = 25.94, SD = 7.86) flight experience ranged from 30 minutes to 5,000 hours (Mean = 662.38 hours, SD = 895.13 hours). A within-subjects design was used, in which participants completed two equivalent measures of PI; once alone, and once in pairs, following discussion. Significant evidence of PI was found for all pilots when measured alone, t(77) = 8.54, p < 0.001 and also when measured in pairs, following discussion, t(77) = 8.92, p < 0.001. Next, unlike in our previous analysis (Lee & Gilbey, 2010), the nine pairs of participants in which one pilot did not demonstrate PI were excluded from all further analyses. (In hindsight, it was considered illogical to expect PI to be polarised following group discussion if it was not evident in individuals at the outset.) Remaining participants were allocated into two groups based upon a median split of their PI scores when measured alone (>5.8 = high PI and ≤5.8 = low PI). A 2x2 ANOVA indicated a main effect of group polarisation on PI, F(1, 58) = 5.24, p = .026 (Malone = 6.24, SD = 1.03; Mgroup = 6.01, SD = .96) and an interaction between manipulation (alone vs. group) and PI score in the control condition (low vs. high) F(1, 58) = 7.42, p = .009. Contrary to predictions, pilots with the higher levels of PI when alone showed a reduction in PI when measured in groups.The implications of the current study, suggest that perceived invulnerability in GA may be less of a problem when two (or more) pilots fly together, than when they fly alone. Future research could thus investigate accident reports to investigate whether lone pilots are more likely than two pilots to be involved in accidents or incidents where PI was a contributing factor. The findings of this study are reassuring regarding commercial flight operations, where normally there will be two pilots.
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    A study of medical, nursing, and institutional not-for-resuscitation (NFR) discourses : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2002) Bickley Asher, Joy Lynley
    This study investigates the way that medical, nursing and institutional discourses construct knowledge in the specific context of Not-for-resuscitation (NFR) in a New Zealand general hospital where NFR guidelines are available in the wards and from the regional ethics committee. The thesis argues that there are ranges of techniques that staff use to construct NFR knowledge, enacted through various forms of speech and silence, which result in orderly and disorderly experiences for patients nearing death. The study was conducted through a critical analysis of the talk of health professionals and the Chairperson of the Regional Ethics Committee. Critical discourse analysis, a methodology that is primarily concerned with a critical analysis of the use of language and the reproduction of dominant ideologies or belief systems in discourse, was employed. The researcher examined the transcribed, audiotaped talk of eleven professional staff members of a large metropolitan general hospital, and the Regional Ethics Committee Chairperson. The results of the analysis indicate that medical discourses do not dominate the construction of NFR knowledge within the institution. Nor do the institutional or ethics committee discourses, written as NFR policy documents, dominate by instilling order into NFR practices with patients. Rather, a range of discourse practices within the disciplines of nursing, medicine, management and policy advice work to determine what happens to patients in the context of NFR and, unexpectedly, cardiopulmonary resuscitation. NFR discourses designed by the institution to influence and standardise practice at the bedside are resisted by professional discourses through the techniques of keeping quiet and keeping secrets, forcing others to keep quiet, delays in speaking up, through to speaking up against opposition. These techniques of speech and silence constitute a divergence between institutional discourses and professional discourses, and divergence within nursing and medical discourses. Both medical and nursing discourses underplay the degree of influence their professional power had over NFR events. This research is potentially significant at two levels; firstly because of what it reveals about the way in which health professionals and policy advisors construct NFR knowledge and secondly, because of the relationship between NFR practices in the health sector and societal ideas about control of death at the beginning of the twenty-first century. These findings will have particular relevance for the shaping of future health care policies. The outcomes of this study also point to the need for further research, both into NFR and into cardio-pulmonary resuscitation events particularly with regard to the implications of the policies for patients and their families.