Editorial

With the end of 2017, an opportunity arises to thank everyone who has contributed to the success of our Journal over the years. I would like to offer words of gratitude to our readers, our contributors, and our Editorial Board for their support of the Journal and its mission. My special thanks go to Adiel Almeida, Daniel Druckman, Colin Eden, and Rudolf Vetschera, who as senior editors, provided guidance and shared ideas.

I would also like to express my appreciation of the work of the editorial team at Springer: Stefan Einarson (Publishing Editor), Christopher Wilby (Assistant Editor), Ambiga Selvaraj (Production Editor), and Ayshwarya Ganesan (Journal Editorial Office Assistant); they have all helped me learn about the Journal’s operations and were instrumental in making 2017 another successful year.

The purpose of the Journal is to provide scholars and practitioners involved in the different aspects of group decision and negotiation with content relevant to their work. The fields of study that belong to GDN are both those that are well established and those that are emerging. The established fields increasingly employ newly developed methods and technologies, while the new and emerging fields verify and adapt well-known theories to novel circumstances. This means that the fields of study not only evolve but become increasingly intertwined—research in psychology and sociology often relies on artificial intelligence and decision support systems, economics incorporates social-psychological approaches, and artificial intelligence increasingly relies on results coming from psychology and management. To keep the Journal relevant to our readers we need to publish high quality articles coming from established disciplines as well as the emerging ones.

Maintaining the multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary nature of the Journal and continuing to increase its high quality are challenging objectives and the Board strives to achieve them. We look for excellent manuscripts from economics, psychology, sociology, political science, management as well as artificial intelligence, computer science, neural science, engineering, and fuzzy systems. The challenge is to attract good manuscripts from these areas and to provide the best possible review process that increases the manuscripts’ quality. In addition, we need to maintain the right balance of fields of study covered so that a currently fashionable area does not overly dominate the issues.

I hope that our readers find our articles to be of quality, relevant to their work, and informative. A short overview of the 53 articles published in volume 26 (2017) is given below.

1 Vol. 26 Overview

The first issue of 2017 includes Special Issue on Justice and Fairness in Negotiation edited by Daniel Druckman and Lynn Wagner. The issue introduces a variety of qualitative and quantitative approaches to justice and fairness concerns that extend from the negotiation process to the outcome and into the implementation stage. The Issue has five articles: (1) Hollander-Blumoff explores the antecedents of procedural justice judgments in legal negotiations and the negotiator’s perception of a fair process; (2) Lynn Wagner and Daniel Druckman develop a multidimensional index of durable peace and use it to evaluate the impact of procedural and distributive justice on reconciliation and changes in societal institutions; (3) David Welch’s comparative case analyses shows that conflicts can be difficult to resolve even when strategic or economic issues are negligible; (4) Cecilia Albin and Daniel Druckman’s article shows that adherence to PJ principles predicts effectiveness in multilateral negotiations; and (5) Steven Brams and colleagues present algorithms for balanced allocation of indivisible items between two players.

In the same issue, Victoria Levati, et al. report on the experimental investigation of ambiguity aversion in collective choices. Andranik Tangian’s two articles employ both qualitative and quantitative methods; the first article identifies the problems associated with irrational voting by the political parties’ representativeness. The second article proposes an election procedure that increases parties’ representativeness. Yen-Sheng Chiang and Yung-Fong Hsu’s article presents simulation results of direct and indirect election systems.

Issue 2 opens with an article by Ricky Wong and Susan Howard’s three studies on the impact of information about the counterparts’ power on the negotiators’ behaviours and outcomes. Then, Stefan Oppl proposes a methodology that offers structural and procedural guidance by adopting diagrammatical conceptual modeling techniques. In the next article, Emin Karagözoğlu and Ümit Urhan examine the effect of changes in stake-size on behaviour in experimental bargaining and distribution games. Then, Smaranda Boroş et al. use a field experiment to study the relationship between the effectiveness of conflict management and the quality of cross-functional management teams’ performance. António Osório’s article proposes a unique allocation rule for any number of individuals. Zaiwu Gong and his colleagues propose a consensus model that takes both the negotiation cost and DM’s preference structure into consideration. The last article by Yibin Zhang, et al. proposes a goal programming framework for deriving intuitionistic fuzzy weights from intuitionistic preference relations.

Issue 3 has 9 articles. In the first, Josep Freixas and Montserrat Pons consider binary voting systems modeled by a simple game, in which voters vote independently of each other, and the probability distribution over coalitions is known. In the next article, Nicolas Gabriel Andjiga, et al. describe a condition that rules out Anscombe’s paradox and propose sufficient conditions on a unifying preference domain to rule out the possibility of this paradox to occur. Ofrit Lesser et al., develop and verify a framework that uses a probabilistic algorithm based on the social similarity among the group members. Ricardo Mateus et al., present a real-world application of the MACBETH socio-technical approach for the sustainable redevelopment of a brownfield. Then, Adiel de Almeida-Filho introduces a multicriteria voting model and illustrates its application with a preventive maintenance management of a water supply system. The article by Eric Kamwa studies the relationships, in three-candidate elections, between three stable rules for committee elections. The next two articles belong to the fuzzy sets area: Fanyong Meng et al., study the model for fuzzy multi-choice games with fuzzy characteristic functions and Zhang-peng Tian et al. use life-cycle assessment technique to develop a multi-criteria group decision-making approach that incorporates power aggregation operators and a TOPSIS-based model. Ali Azarnivand et al., close the issue with a group decision-making framework which integrate TOPSIS and QSPM for multiple criteria analysis of the watershed-based strategic planning.

Issue 4 includes Special Issue Preference Analysis and Decision Support in Negotiations and Group Decisions edited by Adiel de Almeida and Tomasz Wachowicz comprising four articles: (1) Antonio Jimenez-Martin et al. present an extension of the additive multi-attribute utility model with veto values; (2) Mats Danielson and Love Eckenberg examine the problem of determining a reliable system of criteria weights based on the preferential information provided by the decision makers in ordinal way; (3) Miłosz Kadziński and Michał K. Tomczyk propose an interactive evolutionary approach to solving optimization problems assuming that the preference model is obtained from the decision makers in indirect way; and (4) Marcella Maia Urtiga et al. analyze the problem of supporting the watershed committees in choosing among combinations of alternatives.

In the other articles in this issue Marcella Maia Urtiga et al., propose a voting procedure that allows group members to vote on a combination of alternative solutions. Alexander Karpov’s article solves the Alcalde-Unzu and Vorsatz’s preference diversity conundrum and proposes two new preference diversity orders. Leandro Rêgo and Giannini Vieira generalize a solution concept, called symmetric sequential stability (SSEQ), in the graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR) for conflicts involving decision makers. Raúl Pérez-Fernández and Bernard De Baets introduce the intuitive property of recursive monotonicity of the scorix and propose a ranking rule that focuses on the search for recursive monotonicity of the scorix. H. Stuart Jr.’s article discusses contingent contracts in negotiations in which the potential value creation depends upon external uncertainties and the negotiators have different beliefs about these uncertainties. This issue concludes with an article by Živan Živkovi et al., in which several models are combined to prioritize strategic goals in higher education organizations.

Issue 5 includes Special Issue Making Decision in Open Communities: Collective Actions in the Public Realm edited by Anna De Liddo and Grazia Concilio in which five articles explore the modes and forms of decision-making in open communities—organizations with loosely coupled, often informal, structures and with flexible and permeable boundaries: (1) Barbara Scozzi and her colleagues describe urban lab methodology applied to the renovation of a historical center and adopted by the local actors; (2) Fernando Nogueira et al. discuss initiatives outside the formal planning system and suggest their role in creating environment conducive to decision analysis and implementation; (3) Lu Xiao et al. discuss decision-making in large-scale online open participative environments and activities; (4) Raffaele Giordano et al. explore conditions that do not enable an effective collective action to occur in open organizations responsible for ground water use; and (5) Grazia Concilio and Anna Moro discuss the impact of interventions in urban public spaces on traditional closed-setting decision-making.

Then, Florian Teschner et al. discuss online experiments to explore scenarios in which principals run conditional decision markets in order to inform about their choice from among a set of a risky alternatives. Bruce Reinig et al.’s article investigates the degree to which the propositions of Yield Shift Theory are consistent with the observed outcomes—a study of satisfaction with technology-supported collaboration among knowledge workers from the Netherlands and the USA. Sean Walker and Keith Hipel’s article applies GMCR to a potential climate negotiation between the USA and PRC to gain strategic insights into how a successful agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could be reached. This issue concludes with an article by Begoña Subiza and Josep Peris who propose a new voting procedure for electing committees—the procedure guarantees that if there is a committee that represents all of the existing voters, then the selected committee has to represent all of the voters in at least the same proportion.

Issue 6 is last in volume 26. An article by Jihyun Paik and Lyn Van Swol discusses an experiment designed to discover differences in justifications made by truth-tellers and deceivers. Michele Griessmair compares stalemate dyads with efficient settlement dyads in order to identify emotional dynamics that characterize successful as opposed to unsuccessful negotiations. Then, Andranik Tangian presents an alternative election method in which the voters do not cast direct votes, instead they are asked about their preferences regarding the policy issues as declared in the party manifestos. An article by Jiyoung Park et al. propose a new framework that empirically quantifies the temporally disaggregate economic impacts and use it to identify the technological changes in the production that occurred after a major disruption. Francineide de Morais et al. present an application of VICA-ELECTRE TRI to student allocation to classes in a language school. Jianwei Gao and Huihui Liu’s article develops a new class of aggregation operators based on reference-dependent utility functions in multi-attribute group decision analysis in order to quantify the influence of decision makers’ psychological factors on the group decision process. An article by Tanveer Ahmed et al. uses game-theoretic model to understand conflicting interests of a government and a tobacco manufacturer in awarding subsidy and price setting. The issue is concluded with an article in which J. Alonso-Meijide proposes a generalization of simple games to partition function form games based on a monotonicity property, which allows the assessment of minimal winning embedded coalitions.

2 Departmental and Associate Editors and Guest Editors

Group Decision and Negotiation is poised to become an even stronger and more widely recognized contributor to the broader group decision and negotiation discourse. Steps taken toward achieving this include broadening the Editorial Board. In 2017, the following eminent scholars committed to our Journal, joined the Editorial Board:

• Michal Araszkiewicz, Jagiellonian University, Poland

• Petr Ekel, Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Brazil

• Ingmar Geiger, Aalen University, Germany

• Henner Gimpel, University of Augsburg, Germany

• Alexander Karpov, National Research University HSE, Russia

• Jennifer Parlamis, University of San Francisco, USA

• Gabriella Pasi, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy

• Yinping Yang, Institute of High Performance Computing, Singapore

The Associate Editors who joined as well as the Departmental and Associate Editors for years diligently served in the Board. The Former in the Reviewer capacity and the latter as Coordinating Editors and also as Reviewers. I am very grateful for their contribution and assuring the reviewing process is efficient and provides comprehensive and in-depth directions for the manuscript improvement. The names of the Board members are available on the Journal web page (https://springer.com/journal/10726) as well as inside the cover page of every issue.

3 Appreciation to Reviewers

The success of the Journal is due in a very large part to the many members of the scholarly community who act as reviewers. Every editor who is involved with the reviewing process is grateful and appreciative of the reviewers’ hard work and contribution. Many thanks go to all the reviewers who generously provided time, expert counsel and guidance on a voluntary basis. Without their outstanding work in submitting timely, unbiased, and thoughtful reviews, the journal could not function.

The editors were asked to nominate the best reviewers using such criteria as timeliness, critical suggestions for revision, thoroughness, willingness to contribute, and enthusiasm in supporting the Journal. Based on the editors’ recommendation, the ten recipients of the “Best 2017 Reviewer Award” are:

• Uwe Dulleck, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

• Dorota Górecka, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland

• Naoki Fukuta, Shizuoka University, Japan

• Fujun Hou, Beijing Institute of Technology, China

• Alessio Ishizaka, University of Portsmouth, U.K.

• Annick Laruelle, University of the Basque Country,

• Sarah Oeste-Reiß, Universität Kassel, Germany

• Elli Rapti, The Centre for Research & Technology, Hellas, Grece

• Isabella Seeber, Universität Innsbruck, Austria

• Muhamet Yildiz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Finally, the members of the Editorial Board and I wish to gratefully acknowledge all those who have generously given their time to review papers submitted to Group Decision and Negotiation in 2017. You helped the authors to improve their work and the editors to make informed decisions.

• Miren Josune Albizuri, University of the Basque Country

• Hillie Aaldering, Universiteit van Amsterdam

• Marc Adam, The University of Newcastle

• James Alexander, Curtin University

• Pavel Alvarez, Universidad de Occidente

• Shahrokh Asadi, Amirkabir University of Technology

• Tim Baarslag, The Centrum Wiskunde and Informatica

• Quan Bai, Auckland University of Technology

• Sylvain Beal, Université de Franche-Comté

• Jose Belso-Martinez, Universidad Miguel Hernandez de Elche

• Smaranda Boros, Vlerick Business School

• Katharina Burger, University of Portsmouth

• Christopher Califf, Western Washington University

• Rachel Campagna, University of New Hampshire

• Jesse Chandler, University of Michigan

• Shin-yih Chen, National Taipei University

• Zoran Ciric, University of Novi Sad

• Suzana Daher, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco

• David Daniels, Stanford Graduate School of Business

• Boris Delibasic, University of Belgrade

• L.C. Dias, University of Coimbra

• Stanko Dimitrov, University of Waterloo

• William Donohue, Michigan State University

• Verena Dorner, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

• Lorna Doucet, Fudan University

• Michael Doumpos, Technical University of Crete

• Uwe Dulleck, Queensland University of Technology

• Love Ekenberg, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

• Maria Teresa Escobar, Universidad de Zaragoza

• Valentina Ferretti, London School of Economics and Political Science

• John Friend, Sheffield

• Katsuhide Fujita, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology

• Randall Gordon, University of Minnesota

• Amanda Gregory, University of Hull

• Mario Guajardo, Norwegian School of Economics

• Elisabeth Guenther, Cranfield School of Management

• Martina Hartner-Tiefenthaler, Technische Universitat Wien

• Jerrie Hsieh, Rochester Institute of Technology

• Randall W. Jackson, West Virginia University

• Ryszard Janicki, McMaster University

• Jolanda Jetten, The University of Queensland

• Antonio Jiménez, Madrid Technical University

• Miłosz Kadziński, Poznan University of Technology

• Serguei Kaniovski, Austrian Institute of Economic Research

• Daniel Karabekyan, National Research U. Higher School of Economics

• Alexander Karpov, National Research U. Higher School of Economics

• Bernhard Kittel, University of Vienna

• Mitri Kitti, University of Turku

• Michael Knierim, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

• Konrad Kulakowski, AGH University of Science and Technology

• Isabella Lami, Politecnico di Torino

• Sang-Heui Lee, Pittsburg State University

• Ilkka Leppanen, Loughborough University

• Mingwei Lin, Fujian Normal University

• Bonifacio Llamazares, Universidad de Valladolid

• Jing Ma, University of Manitoba

• Marcin Malawski, Kozminski University

• Ivan Marsa-Maestre, Universidad de Alcala de Henares

• Alicia Mas-Tur, University of Valencia

• Nikolaos Matsatsinis, Technical University of Crete

• Jozsef Mezei, Åbo Akademi University

• Alanah Mitchell, Drake University

• Usha Mohan, Indian Institute of Technology Madras Chenna

• Jose Maria Moreno Jimenez, Universidad de Zaragoza

• Caroline Miranda Mota, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco

• Issofa Moyouwou, University of Yaounde I

• Cuong Nguyen, University of Nebraska at Omaha

• Katja Niemann, Fraunhofer Inst. for Applied Information Technology

• Fernando Nogueira, Universidade de Aveiro

• Timothy Norman, University of Southampton

• Wolfgang Ossadnik, University of Osnabrueck

• Montserrat Pons, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya

• Nadav Prawer, Victoria University

• Nicolas Proellochs, University of Freiburg

• Igor Pyrko, University of Strathclyde

• Veland Ramadani, South East European University

• Bruce Reinig, San Diego State University

• Duncan Robertson, Loughborough University

• Valentin Robu, Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh

• Norat Roig, Valencian International University

• Naomi Rothman, Lehigh University

• Anne F. Rutkowski, Tilburg University

• Andrey Subochev, National Research U. Higher School of Economics

• Jih-Hsin Tang, National Taipei University of Business

• Elena Tavella, University of Copenhagen

• Timm Teubner, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

• Lino Tralhão, University of Coimbra

• Martijn Van der Kamp, Monash University

• Lyn Van Swol, University of Wisconsin Madison

• Dragos Vasilescu, Technische Universitat Wien

• Sinisa Vukovic, Johns Hopkins University

• Zhou-Jing Wang, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics

• Leroy White, University of Bristol

• Joachim Winter, Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich

• Shikui Wu, Ryerson University

• Daniel Zantedeschi, Ohio State University

• Dao-Zhi Zeng, Northeastern University

• Ronghuo Zheng, Carnegie Mellon University

• Ray Zhong, The University of Auckland