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The purpose of this paper is to examine whether education and training affect pro‐social behavior. Economics students are often accused of being less pro‐social. The explanations given are that less pro‐social people choose to study economics or that economics studies indoctrinate students to selfish behavior. The paper experimentally tests these postulations.

The paper uses the prisoner's dilemma game and stag hunt game to study cooperation across different groups of students.

The experiment supports neither of the postulations: economics students would be indoctrinated or less pro‐social people choose to study economics. However, the study shows that police cadets, who go through an education where teamwork and cooperation is promoted, become more cooperative and pro‐social after their completed education.

In contrast to earlier studies, this paper does not simply study economics students, but also examines if students in educational programs that promote loyalty and cooperation and encourage teamwork are more pro‐social than other students.

An in-depth analysis of how senior managers in a large multinational corporation interpret their social and environmental responsibilities revealed that, notwithstanding formal corporate interpretations, discrepancies persisted in their interpretation of what was expected of them and how to implement it. Two fault lines emerged: (1) an instrumental versus a normative interpretation of corporate societal responsibilities, and (2) a focus on ‘doing less/no harm’ versus ‘doing more good’. This chapter introduces a theoretical framework that combines these fault lines to form four quadrants that each represent a different set of challenges managers face as they commit to improving their organisation’s impact on society. Rather than adjudicate between them, a holistic interpretation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) takes all four types into account. But the four types of challenges differ considerably in nature and thus in the strategic approach that is necessary to deal with them. In this chapter, each quadrant is discussed in detail. What characterises the issues in this quadrant, what mindset, and what strategy are necessary to address them? The chapter concludes with the observation that the framework, and the taxonomy of types of CSR challenges that it brings to the fore, creates greater awareness of how industries are confronted with different sets of challenges and thus need different strategic approaches. A better understanding of these differences may lead to more support, in particular for those managers who work in industries that face a disproportionate share of one particular type of challenges, the ‘nasty trade-offs’.

Some research in the area of make‐buy decisions for new technologies suggests that it is a good idea for a company to pursue a fairly rigorous “make” policy in the early days of a potentially disruptive innovation. Other studies prescribe exactly the opposite, promoting instead a “buy” strategy. Drawing from observations and lessons from the Prisoner's Dilemma, this paper seeks to bridge the gap between these perspectives by suggesting that both strategies are valid, but that they are most successfully applied in different market environments. The “make” prescription may be more suited to either extremely fast or extremely slow rates of technological change, while a “buy” strategy might be more appropriate in market sectors where technologies evolve at a medium pace. This paper highlights the importance of industry clockspeed and supplier relationships in make‐buy decisions for new technologies, and puts forward two new hypotheses that require empirical testing.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a perspective on one of the key complexities of collaboration and co-operative working in the public service within the UK.

The paper focuses the attention on the difficulty of partnership working at a time when leading collaboration is a necessity for all leaders in the public sector. It explores one area of this complexity, namely game theory in order to offer an explanation why departments or organisations find it difficult to co-operate as they should.

The paper allows leaders to understand the complexities of co-operation and the reason why there is often a tendency for individuals to act in a selfish manner on behalf of their organisation. Being aware of this behaviour will provide leaders with a greater ability to build trust and develop joint strategies which will provide positive outcomes.

The paper will highlight how greater understanding of game theory including the prisoner dilemma and the stag hunt can help improve leadership, relationships and outcomes within partnerships.

Social dilemmas take many forms but all share the property that individual benefits, at least in the short run, conflict with group benefits. This chapter examines how information about the characteristics of group members and the parameters of the dilemma affect decision-making. Particular attention is paid to transformative crises, sudden changes in the dilemma setting that for a short period of time lead to incomplete information. It is posited that these crises cause relatively dramatic shifts in the importance of information.

In recent decades, Homer's millennia old story of Ulysses and the Sirens has become a popular and frequently used metaphor for illustrating the importance of institutions, not least constitutional ones (cf., e.g., Elster, 1985; Finn, 1991, 3ff; Elster, 2000; Zakaria, 2003, pp. 7 and 250). In one retelling the story goes like this:The Sirens were sea-nymphs who had the power of charming by their song all who heard them, so that the unhappy mariners were irresistibly impelled to cast themselves into the sea to their destruction. Circe directed Ulysses to fill the ears of his seamen with wax, so that they should not hear the strain; and to cause himself to be bound to the mast, and his people to be strictly enjoined, whatever he might say or do, by no means to release him till they should have passed the Sirens’ island.Ulysses obeyed these directions. He filled the ears of his people with wax, and suffered them to bind him with cords firmly to the mast. As they approached the Sirens’ island, the sea was calm, and over the waters came the notes of music so ravishing and attractive that Ulysses struggled to get loose, and by cries and signs to his people begged to be released; but they, obedient to his previous orders, sprang forward and bound him still faster. They held on their course, and the music grew fainter till it ceased to be heard, when with joy Ulysses gave his companions the signal to unseal their ears, and they relieved him from his bonds.¹

Explains the option of individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs) when formal insolvency proceedings are taken against a UK individual, noting their rapid growth since they were introduced by the Insolvency Act 1986. Applies games theory (the prisoner’s dilemma) to previously published research data (Pond 1988) on the choices made by debtors and creditors for IVAs in order to analyse and discuss their srrategies. Shows that creditors can do better by assessing the risk of IVA failure, using it to discount the projected dividend and comparing the result with the returns from bankruptcy. Considers the implications for policy makers and others involved.

This paper uses an inductive approach to define “gray copyright.” It is needed to describe those situations in which the practical degree of copyright protection can best be measured in shades of risk rather than in simple terms of black and white.

Two methods are used. One is an inductive definition builds up the term's meaning example by example and layer by layer. The second is a behavioral experiment in the spirit of the prisoner's dilemma game.

In the examples of gray copyrights the deciding factor in the grayness is not its legal status, but the economic value of enforcing the usage rights. In the experiment the students have an opportunity to acquire a personal sense of the risks and choices involved in copyright infringements.

This analysis shifts the emphasis from the question of legal right and wrong to the economic issue of what risks are potential infringers and rights holders prepared to take.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the supply chain's resilience in crowd networks from both static and dynamic perspectives.

This paper first defines the supply chain’s resilience, then proposes a graphical and game-theoretic framework to evaluate the resilience.

In this framework, an equilibrium with high resilience will be achieved after the iterated prisoner's dilemma in the supply chain. The two-stage update mechanism contributes to higher profits, higher stability and stronger risk resistance capability. The reputation-based tit-for-tat strategy in the second stage helps to realize society cooperation.

This work pays more attention to the dynamic evolution of interactions between organizations in the supply chain. It provides an important theoretical basis for future work such as how to effectively control and guide the evolution of events in the intelligence network and how to stand sudden changes and avoid collapse.