Group Decisions and Negotiations in the Knowledge Civilization Era

Abstract

In this essay, the concept of the knowledge civilization era and its features are discussed: the informational revolution, the dematerialization of work, the conceptual revolution, the change of episteme. New micro-theories of knowledge creation are presented, as in an evolutionary theory of intuition and its impacts on negotiations. The issue of objective ranking is discussed. Other examples of conceptual change concern the multimedia principle, the emergence principle and a general spiral of evolutionary knowledge creation. The conclusions stress the need of new concepts and approaches within the theory of group decisions and negotiation. This chapter is related to chapters by Bryant, Carlson, and Salo and Hämäläinen, this volume.