Search

We study the degree to which small fluctuations in costs in well-studied potential games can impact the result of natural best-response and improved-response dynamics. We call this the Price of Uncertainty and study it in a wide variety of potential games (including fair cost-sharing games, set-cover games, routing games, and job-scheduling games), finding a number of surprising results. In particular, we show that in certain cases, even extremely small fluctuations can cause these dynamics to spin out of control and move to states of much higher social cost, whereas in other cases these dynamics are much more stable even to large degrees of fluctuation. We also consider the resilience of these dynamics to a small number of Byzantine players about which no assumptions are made. We show again a contrast between different games. In certain cases (e.g., fair cost-sharing, set-covering, job-scheduling) even a single Byzantine player can cause best-response dynamics to transition to states of substantially higher cost, whereas in others (e.g., the class of β-nice games which includes routing, market-sharing and many others) these dynamics are much more resilient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationships among subordinates’ feedback seeking strategies, their LMX qualities, social cost subordinates perceived and superior’s source credibility were examined. Some 134 employees of various civil engineering companies in South Korea completed a questionnaire. The findings showed that LMX quality, social cost, and source credibility independently or jointly influenced subordinates’ feedback seeking behaviors. Preference for using the tactic of directly asking was substantially associated with LMX quality of relationship whereas preferences for using the tactics of indirectly asking and asking third party were not related to LMX quality. The negative relationship between LMX and preferences for indirect tactic is strengthened by source credibility. Finally the negative relationship between LMX and preferences for asking third party is strengthened by source credibility. Implications and limitations were discussed. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]