Marc Le Menestrel

List of Published Academic Papers

Marc Le Menestrel — 2011-12-20T12:52:05Z

R. Pedersini, R. Nagel and Le Menestrel, M. (2019): “The Power of Requests in a Re-distribution Game: An Experimental Study” Games, 10, 27.

Le Menestrel, M. (2018): “The biased balance: Observation, formalism and interpretation of a dissymmetric measuring device” Measurement, 125, 659-666.

Rode, J ; Le Menestrel, M. ; Cornelissen, G. (2017) : “EcosystemService Arguments Enhance Public Support for Environmental Protection - But Beware of the Numbers!” Ecological Economics 141 : 213–221.

Le Menestrel, M. & Van Wassenhove, L. (2016): “Subjectively Biased Objective Functions” EURO Journal of Decision Processes, Vol. 4, N° 1, p 73-83.

Rode, J.; Le Menestrel, M.; Van Wassenhove, L.; Simon, A. (2015): "Ethical Analysis for Evaluating Sustainable Business Decisions: The Case of Environmental Impact Evaluation in the Inambari Hydropower Project.” Sustainability, 7, 10343-10364.

Honey-Rosés, J., M. Le Menestrel, D. Arenas, F. Rauschmayer and J. Rode (2014): “Enriching Intergenerational Decision-Making with Guided Visualization Exercises” Journal of Business Ethics, 122:675–680.

Cornelissen, G., Bashshur, M., Rode, J. and Le Menestrel, M. (2013): “Rules or consequences? The role of ethical mindsets in moral dynamics” Psychological Science, 24 (4), 482 - 488.

Le Menestrel, M. and Rode, J. (2013): "Why did business not react with precaution to early warnings?" in Late lessons from early warnings: science, precaution, innovation, European Environmental Agency Report 1/2013, Chapter 25.

Rode, J. and Le Menestrel, M. (2011): “The influence of decision power on distributive fairness” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 79: Issue 3, 246-255.

Rauschmayer, F., I. Kavathatzopoulos, P.L. Kunsch, M. Le Menestrel (2009): “Why good practice of OR is not enough—Ethical challenges for the OR practitioner” Omega 37: 1089-1099.

Le Menestrel, M. & Van Wassenhove, L. (2009): “Ethics in Operations Research and Management Sciences: A never-ending effort to combine rigor and passion” Omega 37: 1039-1043.

Hunter, M., Le Menestrel, M., & de Bettignies, H.-C. (2009): “Beyond Control: Crisis Strategies and Stakeholder Media in the Danone Boycott of 2001.” Corporate Reputation Review 11, 335-350

Lemaire, B. & Le Menestrel, M. (2009) “Generalized Homothetic Biorders”. Discrete Mathematics 309 3793-3810.

Rode, J., Hogarth, R. & Le Menestrel, M. (2008) “Ethical differentiation and market behavior: An experimental approach”. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 66, 265–280.

Le Menestrel, M. & Lemaire, B. (2006) “Biased Extensive Measurement: The General Case”. Journal of Mathematical Psychology50, 570-581

Lemaire, B & Le Menestrel, M. (2006): “Homothetic Interval Orders.” Discrete Mathematics 306, 1669-1683.

Le Menestrel, M. & Lemaire, B. (2006): “Ratio-scale measurement with intransitivity or incompleteness: the homogeneous case” Theory and Decision 60: 207-217.

Le Menestrel, M. (2006): “Rationality, ethical values and emotions in MCDA: a comment” Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis 13: 179-182.

Le Menestrel, M. (2006): “A One-Shot Prisoners' Dilemma with Procedural Utility.” International Game Theory Review 8: 655-668.

Le Menestrel, M. & Lemaire, B. (2004): “Biased Extensive Measurement: The Homogeneous Case.” Journal of Mathematical Psychology 48: 9-14.

Le Menestrel, M. & Van Wassenhove, L. (2004): “Ethics Outside, Within or Beyond OR Models?” European Journal of Operational Research 153: 477-484.

Le Menestrel, M., van den Hove, S. & de Bettignies, H.-C. (2002): “Processes and Consequences in Business Ethical Dilemmas: The Oil Industry and Climate Change.” Journal of Business Ethics 41(3): 251-266.

Le Menestrel, M., Hunter, M. & de Bettignies, H.-C. (2002): “Internet e-ethics in Confrontation with an Activists' Agenda: Yahoo! on Trial.” Journal of Business Ethics 39(1): 135-144.

van den Hove, S., Le Menestrel, M. & de Bettignies, H.-C. (2002): “The oil industry and climate change: strategies and ethical dilemmas.” Climate Policy 2(1): 3-19.

Le Menestrel, M. (2002): “Economic Rationality and Ethical Behavior. Ethical Business between Venality and Sacrifice.” Business Ethics: A European Review, 11(2), 157-166.

Le Menestrel, M. & Van Wassenhove, L. (2001): “The Domain and Interpretation of Utility Functions: An Exploration.” Theory and Decision 51(2-4), 329-349.

Le Menestrel, M. (2001): “A Process Approach to the Utility for Gambling.” Theory and Decision 50(3): 249-262.

A Model of Rational Behavior Combining Processes and Consequences

Marc Le Menestrel — 2010-10-19T15:28:32Z

Presentation of my Ph.D. Dissertation

Rationality is a central concept for the understanding of human behavior. In management sciences and in economics, it is often treated as the choice of the action that leads to the preferred consequence. This consequentialist standpoint amounts to considering that actions have no intrinsic value in themselves and considerably narrow our perspective. The intention of my dissertation was to propose a model where both values on actions and on consequences would contribute to rational behavior. With this dual approach, one could complement the standard consequentialist approach to rational behavior with a more explicit consideration of subjective values such as “ethical values”, “aesthetic feelings”, “cultural tastes”, “emotional concerns” or “spiritual concerns”.

The fundamental novelty that I was proposing consisted in the articulation of two types of reasons with distinctive essential characteristics. By combining a procedural and a consequential entity, we would manipulate dual types of values that would be irreducible one to the other without being fully independent. In the past decade, I have passionately developed these ideas further and consider them now as much relevant and fruitful. I briefly share below a few developments for which this dissertation acted as a foundation.
The two classical “puzzles” of standard rationality discussed in my dissertation, namely the so-called “Allais paradox” and the “Prisoners' Dilemma have been published in a form very similar to the one presented here (Le Menestrel 2001, 2006). The time it took to publish the second piece is a good indication of how persistent one may have to be in order to find a place within the peer-review system!
In the dissertation, I propose a mathematical model where a factor for procedural concerns combines multiplicatively with the more standard consequential utility. Since then, I have worked on the axiomatic foundations for such a model, thereby providing insights as to how one could provide both a more rigorous measurement of utility and an innovative measurement of how observed behavior may depart from the maximization of it. This works shows that the combination of a multiplicative factor and a value function can model a much wider class of behaviors than those considered rational by the standard model. It has been published as Le Menestrel and Lemaire (2004, 2006a, 2006b) and Lemaire and Le Menestrel (2006, 2009).

I have used the distinction between procedural concerns and consequential motives to approach the articulation of ethical values and self-interest in my teaching of ethics in business decision-making. I found this dual approach particularly interesting to analyze the psychological aspects of ethical decision-making at the individual level as well as the strategic aspects of business decision-making at the corporate level. The general model has been published in Le Menestrel (2002) and an application to the strategies of the oil industry can be found in van den Hove et al. (2002) and Le Menestrel et al. (2002). The community of Operations Research has revealed a most interesting audience to share such a methodology, and that lead to a series of papers published in that field (Le Menestrel and Van Wassenhove, 2001, 2004, 2009; Le Menestrel 2006; Rauschmayer et al. 2009).

It is only at the end of my dissertation that I began to use the metaphor of the biased balance to explain how two types of values could combine to produce an observable phenomenon. On the one hand, there are the objects that are put on the arms of the scale and are measured with a function and on the other hand, there is the bias of the fulcrum that distorts the behavior of the balance and that is measured as a multiplicative factor. In a sense, the model proposed in my dissertation prefigures what I considered a promising approach to the foundations of science. Instead of focusing on the properties of objects and of their relations independently of the measuring device through which phenomena are observed, one should consider the articulation of both the objects and the measuring device itself, which would not necessarily be neutral and would induce departures from the expected behaviors. In this sense, the physical sciences from which standard theories of rationality originate should rather be taken as a limit case of social sciences, a restrictive setting according to which phenomena would be treated independently of the subjects that are there to observe them. As of today, this work still remains at the stage of working papers (Le Menestrel 2010).

I like to say that objectivity, rigor, formalism and models should be seen as means towards a better account of our essentially subjective, qualitative and human values. This departs from the idea that our rationality is “bounded” because we fail to follow the tenet of an illusory mechanical model. I believe that our subjective nature is more than a constraint or an obstacle to our rationality. To the contrary, I believe that we human are much more intelligent than machines or inert physical systems. Moreover, I believe that a better account of our subjective nature could help us in improving our respect of human values, our quest for social justice and our relation with nature.

Click here to download my Ph.D. Dissertation: A Model of Rational Behavior Combining Processes and Consequences.

Papers on Business Ethics

Marc Le Menestrel — 2010-06-18T20:01:14Z

In these papers, we show that a model of rationality which separates and combines economic values with ethical values helps to understand better how business actors think, take decisions, and communicate in the face of ethical dilemmas.

In “Economic Rationality and Ethical Behavior” (published in Business Ethics: A European Review in 2002), I argue that economic values and ethical values cannot be reduced one to the other and should be analyzed separately before the decision to act is taken. An open but non arbitrary form of rationality is proposed that helps to uncover the dynamics of possible behaviors.

In “Processes and Consequences in Business Ethical Dilemmas: the Oil Industry and Climate Change” (published in the Journal of Business Ethics in 2002) and in “The Oil Industry and Climate Change: Strategies and Ethical Dilemmas” (published in Climate Policy in 2002), the approach is developped with Sybille van den Hove (Median & UAB) and Henri-Claude de Bettignies (INSEAD) to study business strategies in the face of climate change regulation.
In “Internet e-ethics in Confrontation with an Activists' Agenda: Yahoo! on Trial” (published in the Journal of Business Ethics in 2002), the approach is applied with Mark Hunter (INSEAD) and Henri-Claude de Bettignies to study the conflict between economic values and cultural values for a large internet company.

Papers on Ethical Rationality

Marc Le Menestrel — 2010-06-18T14:19:47Z

In these papers, we develop the argument that considering some values outside the utility function helps “to” complement the standard approach to rational behavior.

Ethical Rationality refers to this complementary articulation of ethical analysis and rational behavior.

In “A Process Approach to the Utility for Gambling” (published in Theory and Decision in 2001), and in “A One-Shot Prisoners' Dilemma with Procedural Utility” (published in International Game Theory Review in 2006), I model two well-know puzzles of rational behavior by combining a utility function over consequences with a specific procedural utility for actions, as processes towards consequences.

In “The Domain and Interpretation of Utility Functions” (published in Theory and Decision in 2001) and in “Ethics Outside, Within or Beyond OR Models?” (published in the European Journal of Operational Research in 2004), Luk van Wassenhove (INSEAD) and I discuss the methodology of utility functions and argue that ethical values, and more generally values coming from interpretation, should be treated outside utility functions in order to preserve their scientific credibility.

In “Rationality, ethical values and emotions in MCDA” (published in the Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis), I show how the nature of different types of ethical values (consequential, deontological, and virtue-based) renders problematic their treatment as an additional standard criterion of the utility function.

In “Ethical differentiation and market behavior: An experimental approach” (to appear in the Journal of Ecnomic Behavior and Organizations), we study with Julian Rode (UPF) and Robin Hogarth (UPF & ICREA) how ethical concerns such as the fair production of goods influence producers and consumers behavior in an experimental market setting.

Papers on the Foundations of Measurement

Marc Le Menestrel — 2008-06-18T19:58:00Z

In these papers, Bertrand Lemaire and myself develop an approach to measurement where an empirical binary relation is represented by both a scale and a factor. The scale is interpreted as measuring the objects over which the relation is defined while the factor is interpreted as measuring the way these objects are measured.

In our first joint-paper “Biased Extensive Measurement: the Homogeneous Case” (published in the Journal of Mathematical Psychology in 2004), Bertrand Lemaire (UMR 8628 du CNRS, Université de Paris-Sud, Mathématiques) and I consider the case of one-dimensional objects and show that we can measure objects with a function unique up to multiplicative transformation (i.e. a ratio-scale) even when the observed relation lacks transitivity of indifference. This lack of discrimination, which prevents the maximization process, is characterized by a unique and constant multiplicative factor which remains distinct from the ratio-scale.

In “Biased Extensive Measurement: the General Case” (published in the Journal of Mathematical Psychology), we generalize these results to sets of multi-dimensional objects. We propose axioms that allow for the representation of interval orders and semiorders with a ratio-scale and a unique multiplicative factor, which is not necessarily constant. These results extend the classical results of extensive measurement [1]

In these papers, the main property required for a relation to be represented by a ratio-scale and a unique factor which “distorts” this ratio-scale is termed “homotheticity” and corresponds to the intuition of scale invariance. A more detailed mathematical analysis in terms of the theory of algebraic representations is presented in “Homothetic Interval Orders” (published in Discrete Mathematics).

In “Ratio-scale Measurement with Intransitivity or Incompleteness: the Homogeneous Case” (published in Theory and Decision in 2006), we return to the restrictive setting of one-dimensional objects and we extend further our first results by relaxing more properties of the standard model. We do not assume completeness nor transitivity and show how we can model a rational individual who strictly prefers an object with a lower utility because of a unique factor that influences his preference towards that object relative to the other.

In “The biased balance: observation, formalism and interpretation of a dissymmetric measuring device” (submitted to the Journal of Mathematical Psychology), I am showing how this approach contributes to the foundations of measurement. Using the example of the biased balance, I apply my approach to the relation between observation, formalism and interpretation, three basic steps of scientific methodology.

[1] For the theory of extensive measurement, see Krantz, D. H., Luce, R. D., Suppes, P., & Tversky, A. (1971), Foundations of measurement, Vol. I. San Diego: Academic Press. Seminal works on semiorders are due to Luce, R.D. (1956), “Semiorders and a theory of utility discrimination”, Econometrica and on interval orders to Fishburn, P.C., (1973), “Interval representations for interval orders and semiorders”, Journal of Mathematical Psychology. and have an economic interpretation with the idea of “thick indifference curves”.

General Presentation of my Academic Research

Marc Le Menestrel — 2008-06-04T14:17:00Z

The general goal of my academic research is to expand the notion of rational behavior in order to better include considerations such as “ethical values”, “aesthetic feelings”, “cultural tastes”, “emotional concerns” or “spiritual concerns”.

The relation between these essentially subjective values and the theory of rational behavior raises numerous issues that span from the mathematical foundations of science to decision-making for business executives. As a decision scientist, I am treating these issues with a variety of methodologies and an open-minded spirit. I am especially interested in rationality as understood in economics and management sciences but I am grounding my work in multiple disciplines: philosophy of science, ethics, sociology, psychology, and mathematics in particular.

My personal intention is to provide more theoretical and practical legitimacy to subjective values that I believe are essential for individuals, for companies, for society and for our natural environment.

My research is built on the idea of modeling the combination of two separate types of values that influence rational behavior.

First, there is the value that we can attribute to the things we choose and that we observe directly. For instance, if we run an experiment with amounts of money, each sum of money individuals receive has a value that is measured by a value function, also called a utility function or an objective function.

Second, there are subjective considerations that may also influence behavior. These considerations are revealed by observing behavior and are measured by a multiplicative factor which is outside the value function and leads individuals to depart from the maximization of that function.

Rationality thus generally departs from utility maximization. It combines the values of things -as measured by a value function, with the values of people who chose things- and which is measured by a multiplicative factor.

The meaning of this subjective or behaviorally revealed factor is not directly modeled as it depends on its interpretation and it often cannot be attributed to a directly observable object. In some cases, it will be interpreted as a value for fairness, for reciprocity, or for honesty. In some others, it may be interpreted as the willingness to respect a rule or a principle. The factor may also reflect an emotional bias towards a specific alternative over another.

While the concept of utility tends to be consequential, quantitative, absolute, objective, substantive, stable or independent of context, the nature of ethical values tends to be more procedural, qualitative, relative, subjective, immaterial, variable or dependent on context.

Such a combination of two types of rationality is not new in social sciences, as the sociologist Max Weber had long ago conceptualized the ideal-types of instrumental rationality and value-rationality. However, linking such a dual approach with the standard economic rationality model appears as an original contribution.

This approach allows for the notion of rational behavior to cover a broader range of phenomena. For instance, I have used this approach to offer solutions to classical puzzles of rational behavior such as the Prisoners' Dilemma and the Allais paradox. These papers belong to a first stream of research which contributes to the understanding of rational behavior.

However, the risk of this approach is that the factor measuring the subjective values could explain everything: it would simply be an ad-hoc parameter added to the standard model. In a second stream of research, I use the axiomatic method to prove that this is not the case. These papers contribute to the foundations of measurement by identifying the conditions under which, from the observation of preferences, we can prove both the existence and uniqueness of a utility function and the existence and uniqueness of a factor. These papers prove that, far from being ad-hoc, it is possible to assign a utility to the objects of choice and to characterize this factor in a rigorous manner. Hence, we do not need to abandon the idea of measuring utility when individuals do not seem to maximize it.

In a third stream of research, I have applied this approach to the field of business ethics linking with my teaching and personal business experience. In business decisions, it is necessary to measure economic consequences as precisely as possible. However, ethical values that are of more subjective nature (like preserving the environment, respecting the law, alleviating exploitative forms of labor, avoiding corruption, etc) should also be given importance even when they cannot be treated as economic values. Here, my work shows how an open form of ethical rationality that I call "Ethical Rationality" and which helps to improve decision-making in business situations.