Dilemma

About: Dilemma is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 16202 publications have been published within this topic receiving 250251 citations. The topic is also known as: Dilemna.

Climate negotiations under scientific uncertainty

Abstract: How does uncertainty about “dangerous” climate change affect the prospects for international cooperation? Climate negotiations usually are depicted as a prisoners’ dilemma game; collectively, countries are better off reducing their emissions, but self-interest impels them to keep on emitting We provide experimental evidence, grounded in an analytical framework, showing that the fear of crossing a dangerous threshold can turn climate negotiations into a coordination game, making collective action to avoid a dangerous threshold virtually assured These results are robust to uncertainty about the impact of crossing a threshold, but uncertainty about the location of the threshold turns the game back into a prisoners’ dilemma, causing cooperation to collapse Our research explains the paradox of why countries would agree to a collective goal, aimed at reducing the risk of catastrophe, but act as if they were blind to this risk

The escalation of commitment: An update and appraisal.

Abstract: Introduction This chapter is about decision making in escalation situations. It is about the way people deal with predicaments in which things not only have gone wrong but in which corrective actions can actually deepen or compound the difficulty. Let me provide some examples. When people have lost money in common stocks or mutual funds, they often face a dilemma. Should they stick with their losing investments, increase their stake (perhaps through dollar cost averaging), or move their holdings to an entirely different investment vehicle? Virtually the same dilemma confronts people who are dissatisfied with their current jobs, careers, or marriages. They must decide whether it is wise to continue in these situations or start anew with different firms, occupations, or partners. Organizations must also cope with escalation dilemmas. Corporations can spend enormous sums developing new products, only to find that the consumer response is lukewarm. When this occurs, should the firm spend further resources to promote the lagging product as it currently exists, send it back to the laboratory for reengineering, or scrap it altogether? In the financial sector, banks face a similar predicament when they deal with problem loans. If the borrower is not making interest payments, banks must determine whether it is better to work with the troubled client (perhaps by providing additional financing), take additional collateral, or withdraw from the account altogether. Although these personal and organizational examples come from very different areas of experience, they do contain common elements.

Physical solutions to the public goods dilemma in bacterial biofilms

Abstract: Bacteria frequently live in densely populated surface-bound communities, termed biofilms [1-4]. Biofilm-dwelling cells rely on secretion of extracellular substances to construct their communities and to capture nutrients from the environment [5]. Some secreted factors behave as cooperative public goods: they can be exploited by nonproducing cells [6-11]. The means by which public-good-producing bacteria avert exploitation in biofilm environments are largely unknown. Using experiments with Vibrio cholerae, which secretes extracellular enzymes to digest its primary food source, the solid polymer chitin, we show that the public goods dilemma may be solved by two very different mechanisms: cells can produce thick biofilms that confine the goods to producers, or fluid flow can remove soluble products of chitin digestion, denying access to nonproducers. Both processes are unified by limiting the distance over which enzyme-secreting cells provide benefits to neighbors, resulting in preferential benefit to nearby clonemates and allowing kin selection to favor public good production. Our results demonstrate new mechanisms by which the physical conditions of natural habitats can interact with bacterial physiology to promote the evolution of cooperation.

Car Versus Public Transportation? The Role of Social Value Orientations in a Real-Life Social Dilemma1

Abstract: This research evaluates the role of social value orientations (i.e., preferences for distribution of outcomes for the self and others) in decisions as how to commute. It was proposed that the commuting situation could be viewed either as an environmental issue, reflecting the decision structure of an N-person Prisoner’s Dilemma, or as an accessibility problem, reflecting the decision structure of an N-person Chicken Dilemma. On the basis of interdependence theory (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978) it was predicted that people who are primarily concerned with the collective welfareprosocial individuals-would prefer commuting by public transportation when other commuters were expected to go by public transportation. On the other hand, it was hypothesized that people who are primarily concerned with their own well-beingproself individuals-would prefer commuting by public transportation when others were expected to go by car. The obtained findings were consistent with these expectations. Practical and theoretical implications regarding the link between social value orientations and environmentally relevant behavior will be discussed.

Corporate Governance in China: An Overview

Abstract: NOTE: A Chinese translation of this paper is available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1429722.Corporate governance (gongsi zhili) is a concept whose time seems definitely to have come in China. Chinese definitions of corporate governance in the abstract tend to cover the system regulating relationships among all parties with interests in a business organization, usually spelling out shareholders as a particularly important group. But Chinese corporate governance discourse in practice focuses almost exclusively on agency problems, and within only two types of firms: state-owned enterprises (SOEs), particularly after their transformation into one of the corporate forms provided for under the Company Law, and listed companies, which must be companies limited by shares (CLS) under the Company Law. This article discusses Chinese corporate governance in this narrow sense, and attempts to explain some perplexing features of its discourse, laws, and institutions (abbreviated hereinafter as "corporate governance laws and institutions" or CGLI).A fundamental dilemma of Chinese CGLI stems from the state policy of maintaining a full or controlling ownership interest in enterprises in several sectors. The state wants the enterprises it owns to be run efficiently, but not solely for the purpose of wealth maximization. A necessary element of state control of an enterprise is the use of that control for purposes such as the maintenance of urban employment levels, direct control over sensitive industries, or politically-motivated job placement.This in turn creates several problems. First, many of these goals are not easily measured and there is no obvious way of balancing them one against the other. This creates monitoring difficulties. Second, the policy of continued state involvement sets up a conflict of interest between the state as controlling shareholder and other shareholders. In using its control for purposes other than value maximization, the state exploits minority shareholders who have no other way to benefit from their investment.The major theme of this article is that the state wants to make SOEs operate more efficiently by subjecting them to a new and different set of rules - the rules of organization under the "modern enterprise system". Policymakers then find, however, that they must change and adjust the rules to take account of continuing state ownership. Moreover, the need to provide for the special circumstances of state-sector enterprises ends up hijacking the entire Company Law, so that instead of state-sector enterprises being made more efficient by being forced to follow the rules for private-sector enterprises (the original ambition), potential private-sector enterprises are hamstrung by having to follow rules that make sense only in a heavily state-invested economy.