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Handbook of Group Decision and Negotiation pp 325–337Cite as

Facilitated Group Decision Making in Hierarchical Contexts

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Part of the book series: Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation ((AGDN,volume 4))

Abstract

Decision-orientated negotiation faces a particular challenge as regards information logistics when the acting group is part of a larger decision-making hierarchy. This is typically the case in large companies, policy processes, and in land-use planning. In hierarchical planning, the higher (top) levels of decision making frame, and are informed by the lower levels. Concurrently, the lower (subordinate) levels implement, and further specify, the directions given by the higher levels while feedback concerning the lower-level situation and staffs’ anticipations is collected and passed upwards. The groups of stakeholders may use several hard and soft OR methods to assist hierarchical negotiation, but their co-usage needs to be fitted with the requirements of the hierarchical case. This chapter discusses the tasks of groups and their moderators in hierarchical decision making and presents three generic approaches to be applied in solving hierarchical planning problems. In addition, three in-depth examples from natural resources management are presented; the first introduces strategic participative planning of state-owned forests, the second describes forest policy on regional and national scales, and the third illustrates how hierarchical negotiation can be accelerated by using an incentive

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Finnish Forest Research Institute, Joensuu Research Unit, PO Box 68, FI-80101, Joensuu, Finland

    Teppo Hujala & Mikko Kurttila

Authors
  1. Teppo Hujala
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  2. Mikko Kurttila
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Correspondence to Teppo Hujala .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Mathematics, Wilfrid Laurier University, University Ave. W. 75, Waterloo, N2L 3C5, Canada

    D. Marc Kilgour

  2. Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G4 0QU, United Kingdom

    Colin Eden

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Hujala, T., Kurttila, M. (2010). Facilitated Group Decision Making in Hierarchical Contexts. In: Kilgour, D., Eden, C. (eds) Handbook of Group Decision and Negotiation. Advances in Group Decision and Negotiation, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9097-3_20

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