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Policy instruments are a fundamental component of public policies. Policy instruments are often a result of mediation within the policy design process, whenever decision makers reshape existing instruments without introducing any real innovation. This results in imitation, layering and ambiguity in tool choice selection, and raises the theoretical problem of the logic according to which decision makers choose certain specific policy instruments rather than others. Decision makers may have different reasons for choosing certain specific instruments, although these reasons should be connected to the two main purposes of decision-making, that is, the search for effectiveness and the construction of a shared sense, a common acceptance. Thus, the choice of instruments is a question of potentially conflicting drivers that decision makers have to cope with within a specific decisional situation, when asked to solve those problems that have arisen. This paper examines this question and offers an analytical framework based on the two main factors in terms of which the selection of instruments is channelled and assessed: legitimacy and instrumentality. The boundaries created by how decision makers perceive these two dimensions mean that only four selection patterns can be chosen by decision makers: hybridization, stratification, contamination or routinization.

Research summary: This multicompany qualitative field study combines strategy process and strategy-as-practice perspectives to show how innovators successfully gain adoption for their autonomous innovations by reframing the meaning and potential of the associated internal resources to create fit with their organization's strategy. Mapping the five steps involved in the resource reframing process onto the different parts of the Bower-Burgelman process model of strategic change shows that innovators can shape the strategic context for their autonomous innovations before external market validation is available. These findings confirm the unique potential and importance of different forms of discourse in shaping the strategic innovation process. Managerial summary: How do innovators from lower levels of an organization gain approval for their innovations especially when their ideas do not readily fit their organization's strategy? To explore this question, we conducted 138 interviews with innovators and their decision makers in 14 firms based in Silicon Valley. We find that successful innovators shape a story supporting their innovation by rethinking their firm's current and potential resources. They then use this story to convince decision makers that their innovation creates unique competitive advantage. Contrary to conventional wisdom, decision makers approved such innovations even without external validation, solely based on the innovators' success in depicting their reorganization of the firm's resources.

Group decision making has been studied from several viewpoints and a variety of methods has been proposed. However, in the literature on solving multiobjective optimization problems, the main focus has been on supporting a single decision maker. We conducted a systematic literature review to examine and synthesize the state-of-the-art of multiobjective optimization methods developed for group decision making. We analyze group decision making methods of multiobjective optimization according to how preferences of several decision makers are incorporated into the solution process, how to select the most preferred solution for the group, different types of decision makers, types of groups and how the group is to operate during the solution process. In addition, we identify the key issues in the literature that are required to be considered in further method development to increase the methods’ applicability in solving real-world problems. Finally, we guide how to select a method for solving real-world multiobjective optimization problems with multiple decision makers and suggest future research directions.

Implementing integrated medical-nursing care programs for the elderly is increasingly recognized as a standard approach to address the challenges of elderly care in China. However, fierce conflicts have erupted during the implementation of medical-nursing care due to resource limitations. To achieve viable integration, it is crucial to leverage the government’s inherent power for effectively resolving the current conflicts. Therefore, this paper proposes a negotiation approach aimed at effectively solving the conflicts among the Government, Medical-nursing institutions, and Elderly population in China based on the graph model for conflict resolution under power asymmetry (GMCRPA). The novelty includes demonstrating how medical-nursing institutions and the elderly population can adjust their preferences to reach consensus with the government. Compared with the existing GMCRPA model for two decision-makers (DMs), the complexity of the opponent’s movement patterns is greatly increased in the models including multiple decision-makers. Thus, an approach for calculating the reachable sets of the heterogeneous opponent coalition is presented in this paper. Furthermore, the introduced stability analysis also reflects the interaction of different decision-makers under power asymmetry, which makes the proposal being more in line with real-world scenarios. Finally, the robustness of the proposed method is demonstrated in a practical application aimed at resolving medical-nursing care conflicts. The study offers policymakers conflict negotiation strategies rooted in power theory, facilitating the sustainable implementation of an integrated healthcare system for the aging population.

Digital Democratic Innovations (DDIs) have largely been conceived of, by the academic community, as a possible solution to the crisis of representative democracy. DDIs can be defined as initiatives or institutions designed with the goal of deepening citizens’ participation and influence on political decisions through the use of digital tools and platforms. There is a hope that DDIs (as well as usual, non-digital DIs) could help nurture political trust in governing institutions. Yet the vast majority of research on trust and DDIs/DIs focuses only on one side of political trust – the trust of citizens vis-à-vis government. What has largely been ignored, however, is the trust of decision-makers towards citizen participation and its outcomes. We contend that political trust should be seen as a two-sided relationship that implies reciprocity. Therefore, we claim that it is necessary to design DDIs in such a way that they generate political trust from both common citizens and decision-makers. Citizens must trust institutions and processes implemented by the ones in power, and decision-makers must trust the input of citizens’ participatory processes. We argue that transparency is crucial when it comes to fostering reciprocal trust, and we identify the necessary elements to achieve it via DDIs.

Today’s complex problems call for multidisciplinary analytics teams comprising of both analytics and non-technical domain (i.e. subject matter) experts. Recognizing the difference between data visualisaion (DV) (i.e. static visual outputs) and visual analytics (VA) (i.e. a process of interactive visual data exploration, guided by user’s domain and contextual knowledge), this paper focuses on VA for non-technical domain experts. By seeking to understand knowledge sharing from VA experts to non-technical users of VA in a multidisciplinary team, we aim to explore how these domain experts learn to use VA as a thinking tool, guided by their knowing-in-practice. The research described in this paper was conducted in the context of a long-term industry-wide research project called the ‘Visual Historical Atlas of the Australian Co-operatives’, led by a multidisciplinary VA team who faced the challenge tackled by this research. Using Action Design Research (ADR) and the combined theoretical lens of boundary objects and secondary design, the paper theorises a three-phase method for knowledge transfer, translation and transformation from VA experts to domain experts using different types of VA-related boundary objects. Together with the proposed set of design principles, the three-phase model advances the well-established stream of research on organizational use of analytics, extending it to the emerging area of visual analytics for non-technical decision makers.

According to reports from international institutions such as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, United Nations Development Programme, and the World Bank, the impacts of climate change will continue affecting the Least Developed Countries (LDC) for the coming years and the less resilient countries, defined by the climate vulnerability index (CVI), will be the most vulnerable. The CVI relates the Exposure and Adaptive Capacity for a specific Hazard, offering feasible supports for decision-makers in identifying country-specific needs to adapt to climate change. However, even with this scenario, the LDCs are still unable to cope with the impact of extreme events. Therefore, the main question is, which part of Adaptive Capacity needs more effort to deal with extreme weather events? To address this issue, this paper discusses the governance role in the CVI definition, suggesting an alternative approach to assess climate vulnerability. Overall, we propose a tool, taking into account four main components: Exposure, Sensitivity, Adaptive Capacity, and Governance. In this case, the Governance component represents organizations, policies, and qualified human resources that could improve the planning and management of a specific system. More specifically, we explicitly considered the Governance component in the climate vulnerability function by adding specific indicators. As a study case, we consider Mozambique, a highly vulnerable country to the adverse impact of climate change. The results have shown that by adding the Governance component to assess climate vulnerability, the function becomes more sensitive. In conclusion, Governance is accepted as a powerful component in the CVI definition.

The habous institution is playing a considerable religious and socio-economic role in the history of Morocco. Thanks to the revenues derived from habous property, the country was able to acquire numerous social and religious facilities. These resources financed the construction of several mosques and medersas, and ensured the functioning of numerous charitable and general utility works. The habous property is vast and heterogeneous in terms of typologies and functions, it includes agricultural land, urban land plots, and also buildings, a substantial number of which has a heritage value. However, data concerning habous land and real estate is scarce. There are no precise, general and easily consultable databases that bring together data relating to this heritage and enable decision-makers to understand its potential and the way in which this potential can be optimized. In this perspective, several researches have been interested in the elaboration of geographic information systems for the management of land and real estate assets, except that no work has approached such a rich, diversified and heterogeneous heritage as the habous heritage, nor has it presented a complete framework ensuring an extensive characterization of the real estate assets, taking into account the different states of the land: agricultural, serviced or built, the natural, regulatory and patrimonial context of the assets, as well as their technical and functional aspects. To overcome this deficiency, we have designed our own database and we have forged our own classification and coding tools based on an approach that constantly relates different scales of observation and investigation to grasp the complexity and importance of the habous heritage, and explore areas of its development. In this work we have built a Geographic Information System (GIS), composed of a database connected to QGIS and GIS Web in order to store, manage and visualize data related to the habous heritage. The whole infrastructure has been developed and implemented using open-source software. Tests to evaluate the efficiency and the relevance of the results of our information system have been carried out. We tried to show how this system could, from the interpretation and the interrogation of the collected data, be a decision support tool in the management of the habous property.

Alternative meat products, including plant‐based, insect‐based products, and cultured meat, are gaining momentum as sustainable food innovations. Yet, the perceptions of political and institutional actors, key players in shaping regulation, legitimacy, and public discourse, remain poorly understood. This study fills this gap by examining how Romanian policymakers and public institutional actors understand sustainable protein transition using the SPECT framework (Social, Policy, Environmental, Commercial, Technological dimensions). Using qualitative thematic analysis of semi‐structured interviews with 18 political and institutional actors, the research provides the first in‐depth account of how governance elites in an Eastern European context interpret the sustainability, risks, and legitimacy of meat alternatives. The originality of this research lies in reframing political and institutional actors as active co‐authors, rather than passive implementers, of sustainable food transition. The findings reveal a cautious but structured hierarchy of acceptance: plant‐based products are perceived as “palatable bridges” to sustainability, whereas insect‐based and cultured meat products provoke reactions ranging from curiosity to strong symbolic rejection. Concerns extend beyond health or naturalness to include food sovereignty, fairness for domestic producers, and the preservation of culinary identity. Findings highlight the concept of trust as the “currency of transition,” showing that acceptance depends on credible institutions, transparent certification, and communication strategies grounded in local food traditions rather than globalist or “eco‐elitist” narratives. Within the SPECT framework, social and policy dimensions proved more influential than technological or commercial ones, highlighting the primacy of cultural identity and institutional trust in shaping actors' perceptions. By situating Romania's case within the broader debate on just and inclusive food transition, the research provides new empirical evidence on how national identity, smallholder farming structures, and policy skepticism influence the political feasibility of adopting meat alternatives. The study concludes that aligning innovation with national food priorities through trust‐based, inclusive policy design is essential for enabling a culturally embedded protein transition. Although the findings offer insights relevant to broader debates on sustainable protein transitions, their transferability to other national contexts is limited by Romania's specific cultural, institutional, and agri‐food structures. The graphical illustrates key elements in the perceptions of Romanian policymakers and public institutional actors (derived from qualitative research) regarding sustainable protein transition, structured according to the SPECT framework (Social, Policy, Environmental, Commercial, Technological dimensions).

Abstract In many low-and middle-income countries, health systems decision-makers are facing a host of new challenges and competing priorities. They must not only plan and implement as they used to do but also deal with discontented citizens and health staff, be responsive and accountable. This contributes to create new political hazards susceptible to disrupt the whole execution of health plans. The starting point of this article is the observation by the first author of the limitations of the building-blocks framework to structure decision-making as for strengthening of the Moroccan health system. The management of a health system is affected by different temporalities, the recognition of which allows a more realistic analysis of the obstacles and successes of health system strengthening approaches. Inspired by practice and enriched thanks a consultation of the literature, our analytical framework revolves around five dynamics: the services dynamic, the programming dynamic, the political dynamic, the reform dynamic and the capacity-building dynamic. These five dynamics are differentiated by their temporalities, their profile, the role of their actors and the nature of their activities. The Moroccan experience suggests that it is possible to strengthen health systems by opening up the analysis of temporalities, which affects both decision-making processes and the dynamics of functioning of health systems.