The thinking behind the discipline — field notes on impact measurement, decision analysis, the Māori economy, and the ideas behind Whakapapa Economics.
05 Jun 2025
Complex decisions overwhelm intuition and informal methods. Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) breaks complex choices down into clear, manageable parts, making trade-offs explicit and enabling better-informed, transparent, and defensible decisions.
11 Apr 2025
The evolving role of knowledge workers in the age of AI: conceptual thinking, creative direction, and delegation mirror the approach of conceptual artists like Jeff Koons.
16 Feb 2025
We make decisions based on our preferences. If we decide on behalf of others, we need to incorporate their preferences. But how do you incorporate the preferences of hundreds of diverse people into a decision?
16 Feb 2025
Tauutuutu, a cornerstone of Māori societal and economic exchange, offers profound insights into how reciprocity can transform relationships and decision-making. Tauutuutu is derived from ‘tau-’ a prefix indicating reciprocal action, and ‘utu’, a noun with many uses but used here to mean pay or repay.
16 Feb 2025
SROI came out of work on applying Cost-Benefit Analysis to social enterprises in the early 2000s. Without a firm grounding in the principles of economics or finance, it is difficult to trust that an SROI provider has the knowledge and skills to produce rigorous work.
16 Feb 2025
The ultimatum game is a fantastic way to explore the dynamic of tauutuutu/reciprocity. I recently surveyed 15 of Aotearoa, New Zealand’s top Māori Agribusiness leaders. These people run large and successful operations deeply intertwined with the global economy and modern financial markets.
27 Jan 2025
Explore the paradox of expert decision-making and why more data and analysis often fail to improve outcomes. Learn how cognitive biases, preference structuring, and frameworks like Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) can help organisations navigate complex choices effectively.
21 Jun 2024
Explore the $32 million annual economic value of Mt Fyffe in Kaikōura, based on its ecosystem services. Learn how biodiversity valuation helps communicate the importance of nature to decision-makers, enhancing visibility and impact.
13 Jun 2024
Discover how New Zealand farmers prioritize fairness and reciprocity over pure utility maximization in environmental decision-making. Learn about their preferences for equitable burden sharing, the role of income in fairness perceptions, and implications for effective environmental policy.
13 Jun 2024
Explore how Tauutuutu, a Māori ethic of reciprocal exchange, fosters long-term, mutually beneficial relationships in business. Learn how mana and mauri underpin this dynamic model, offering a transformative approach to inter-organisational collaboration, impact investment, and sustainability.
13 Jun 2024
Discover how the Māori ethic of Tauutuutu fosters reciprocal relationships to drive sustainability, innovation, and value chain excellence. Learn from successful examples like Miraka and Tatua, which demonstrate the power of trust-based collaboration in achieving long-term environmental and organisational strength.
13 Jun 2024
Tauutuutu is an ethic driven by Māori economic wisdom supporting reciprocal mutually beneficial transactions over long periods of time, providing a pathway for organisational and environmental strength.
