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This work presents a conceptual model of collective decision-making processes in engineering systems design to understand the tradeoffs, risks, and dynamics between autonomous but interacting design actors. The proposed approach combines value-driven design, game theory, and simulation experimentation to study how technical and social factors of a design decision-making process facilitate or inhibit collective action. The collective systems design model considers two levels of decision-making: 1) lower-level design value exploration; and 2) upper-level design strategy selection. At the first level, the actors concurrently explore two strategy-specific value spaces with coupled design decision variables. Each collective decision is mapped to an individual scalar measure of preference (design value) that each actor seeks to maximize. At the second level, each of the actor’s design values from the two lower-level design exploration tasks is assigned to one diagonal entry of a normalform game, with off-diagonal elements calculated in function of the “sucker’s” and “temptation-to-defect” payoffs in a classical strategy game scenario. The model helps generate synthetic design problems with specific strategy dynamics between autonomous actors. Results from a preliminary multi-agent simulation study assess the validity of proposed design spaces and generate hypotheses for subsequent studies using human subjects.
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Structured to Succeed?: Strategy Dynamics in Engineering Systems Design and their Effect on Collective Performance
Strategy dynamics are hypothesized to be a fundamental factor that influences interactive decision-making activities among autonomous design actors. The objective of this research is to understand how strategy dynamics in characteristic engineering design problems influence cooperative behaviors and collective efficiency for pairs of design actors. Using a bi-level model of collective decision processes based on design optimization and strategy selection, we formulate a series of two-actor parameter design tasks that exhibit four strategy dynamics (harmony, coexistence, bistability, and defection), associated with low and high levels of structural fear and greed. In these tasks, actors work collectively to maximize their individual values while managing the trade-offs between aligning with or deviating from a cooperative collective strategy. Results from a human-subject design experiment indicate cognizant actors generally follow normative predictions for some strategy dynamics (harmony and coexistence) but not strictly for others (bistability and defection). Cumulative link model regression analysis shows a greed factor contributing to strategy dynamics has a stronger effect on collective efficiency and equality of individual outcomes compared to a fear factor. Results of this study establish a foundation for future work to study strategic decision-making in engineering design problems and enable new methods and processes to mitigate potential unfavorable effects of their underlying strategy dynamics through social constructs or mechanism design.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1742971
- PAR ID:
- 10189424
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Mechanical Design
- ISSN:
- 1050-0472
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 16
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4048115
