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TOPICS IN TEAM DECISION THEORY
Abstract
This dissertation draws on diverse branches of team theory literature in order to identify various approaches to team theory and to indicate areas of new research in teams. Chapter I surveys both the economics and engineering literature on team theory. It is shown that the team, as a special case of an organization, can be approached as a simultaneous optimization problem, a special case of game theory, or a special case of the decentralized dynamic control problem. Most literature in team theory has investigated necessary conditions for optimization and solution methods for teams with specific forms of payoff and information functions. Relatively few articles have looked at the payoff-independent informativeness measure ranking of team information structures developed by Marschak. Chapter II through IV of this dissertation attempt to apply the informativeness concept to teams with both observation and communication processes. Chapter II develops a model of team observation and communication. It is shown how a team with both observation and communication processes can be analyzed as an equivalent team with only observation processes. This reduction allows a team with communication processes to be ranked with the Marschak informativeness criterion. The special case of linear information structures is shown to have an equally simple formula for reduction. Chapter III begins with the question of "why should there be a team in the first place?" Without some limitation on the information processing capabilities of the individual decision maker, there is no intrinsic reason why any decision problem can not be performed by one decision maker. A simple model of a constrained decision maker is introduced. This model restricts an individual decision maker to the ability to process a limited number of messages at any point in time. Based on this model, some basic questions about optimal communication are posed, and some solutions offered. Chapter IV provides a simplified demonstration of the problems of dynamic team communication first analyzed by Ho and Chu. In the context of the model provided, there is inherent redundancy in the DM's message about his information and his decisions.
Subject Area
Economic theory
Recommended Citation
FISHER, STEVEN B, "TOPICS IN TEAM DECISION THEORY" (1981). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8118062.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8118062