The
Management Department
Department
Seminar Series
JOSHUA SKEWES
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
Tuesday,
September 26th
2017
Room LE
CLUB at
10:00 am
(4.00
p.m
in Singapore)
Theme: “Informational
Openness Enhances Collaborative Decision-Making
in Groups of Autonomous Agents:
A Cognitive Agent-Based Study”
Abstract: "Collaborative decision making is
central to the organization of society. Juries decide cases; boards and
executive teams make strategic decisions; and voters elect government
officials. It is common to think of such groups as decision making entities. We
say that juries deliberate; that boards rule; and that electorates decide. But
this language is imprecise. Real decision processes do not occur within any
group as an abstract entity. Collaborative decision making always happens
within and between individual group members. There is a rich body of research
focused on how individuals decide together in groups. Most of this research
assumes that individuals are already committed to the group they are in. This
leaves open the question of how individuals decide to join decision making
groups in the first place. We present an agent-based model of collaborative
decision making designed to address this question. We develop this model in the
context of existing research on task learning and intra-group communication. We
demonstrate that collaborative decision making is done best when it is done by
groups that are informationally, as well as structurally, open."