Decision Making & Negotiations

Reprinted in Fred Lane, (ed.), <em>Current Issues in Public Administration</em> (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978), pp. 288- 301.

Can collective bargaining and the merit system co-exist in public employment? Many writers in the field think that concepts of merit must give way to seniority in government service, as it has in the private sector. The authors believe that view is incorrect. Indeed, by pressing for equity, and an end to patronage, unions may even be contributing to the strengthening of the merit system.

The purpose of this paper is to study consumer information processing within the context of attitude formation and change. Examination of the cognitive rules used by consumers in manipulating information presented in a persuasive communication seems quite relevant to understanding the impact of such communications. Persuasive communications can be viewed as presenting data to the consumer, who then manipulates and combines those data in the process of forming or changing an attitude.

The article explores the increasing popularity and importance of interest arbitration with regard to resolving collective bargaining disputes in public sector labor relations in the U.S. In avoiding or terminating strikes that threaten basic public interest, the use of arbitration may pose the only practical means of dealing with the situation. Furthermore, third-party figures brought to negotiating disputes harbors a fairness concept that is often viewed an important ingredient of labor stability.

A distinction is drawn between the multiattribute attitude model as a measurement device and as a theory of attitude formation and change. Using an analysis of variance paradigm to investigate the underlying multiplicative and summative assumptions, Fishbein's multiattribute theory is found to demonstrate reasonably high construct validity. Individual differences in attribute combination rules are identified, and the issue of cognitive averaging vs. cognitive summation is raised.

With so many mathematically bowdlerized, and computerized, versions of the application of systems analysis abroad it is a pleasure to welcome this purely descriptive account of the application of decision system analysis (DSA) to four marketing decision systems. Professors Capon and Hulbert describe the application of DSA to pricing, forecasting, advertising, and new product development that they carried out with the cooperation of a large, multinational, British firm specialized in the marketing of processed raw materials to secondary processors.

This research paper presents an in-depth study of two systems developed by a British oligopolist's one system for sales volume forecasting, the other system for day-to-day decisions on pricing. The paper describes two decision systems employed by a firm in an industry characterized as undifferentiated oligopoly; the development of terms of trade to suit market conditions and of short-term expectations with regard to volumes.

An examination of research studies that assume the existence of the sleeper effect concept has revealed surprising results: this effect may be observed only under certain restrictive design conditions-with subsets of the population divided on the basis of personality characteristics.

The degeneration of orderly relationships between city governments and their employees seriously complicates the nature of government and democracy in urban America. While most cities have not yet experienced major minimal labor breakdowns, most city governments do suffer from seemingly chronic conditions, like inadequate revenues and spiraling costs, which easily can serve as catalysts for municipal labor crises. Data show that serious labor relations problems are no longer limited to a few unfortunate cities like New York, the subject of this study.