Uses and Misuses of Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) in Environmental Decision Making

We focus on a class of multicriteria methods that are commonly used in environmental decision making—those that employ the weighted linear average algorithm (and this includes the popular analytic hierarchy process (AHP)). While we do not doubt the potential benefits of using formal decision methods of this type, we draw attention to the consequences of not using them well. In particular, we highlight a property of these methods that should not be overlooked when they are applied in environmental and wider decision-making contexts: the final decision or ranking of options is dependent on the choice of performance scoring scales for the criteria when the criteria weights are held constant. We compare this "sensitivity" to a well-known criticism of the AHP, and we go on to describe the more general lesson when it comes to using weighted linear average methods—a lesson concerning the relationship between criteria weights and performance scoring scales.     

Of Apes and Infants: The Cutting Edge of Psychoanalytic Thought?

Carmel Flaskas and Brian Cade were asked to read and comment on two recent publications which, in very different ways, seem to be taking the field of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in new directions, Robert Langs’ The Evolution of the Emotion-Processing Mind and Daniel Stern's The Motherhood Constellation. What follows is a slightly edited version of their individual reactions to the books, to each others’ views, and to a question posed by the editors.     

Ayudarum: an Austrian crowdsourcing company in the Startup Chile accelerator program

The founders of Ayudarum, an Austrian crowdsourcing company that is focused on connecting students with potential employers, joined the Chilean Startup accelerator ‘Startup Chile’ to help their young company expand outside its European roots. Startup Chile had provided Ayudarum with a mentor to help them understand how to grow Ayudarum’s number of users. Ayudarum’s initial business model, which had functioned well in Europe, involved partnering with universities. Universities made the Ayudarum site available to students who, in turn, logged in with their student email account. Once there was a large base of students onboard, firms were contacted to advertise jobs on the site. Now that the founders were trying to tap into the South American market, they discovered that students did not use their university email addresses and that there were distinct cultural differences in the way students worked, found jobs, and were paid. This difference may mean that Ayudarum would need to rethink the way its business model, how different markets should be targeted, and how the most value could be derived from its membership at Startup Chile.