society as an entity of people for which common preferences may be identified, exogenous
boundary conditions are the same and share common resources. Before societal optimal
decision making can be pursued it is necessary that these attributes are identified. It is clear
that this definition may be applied to unions of states or countries, individual states and
countries as well as local communities depending on the context of the decision making,
however, it is seen that the geographical limitations are not essential even though they often in
reality are implicitly given by the other attributes.
In practice a society is a complex entity even for societies at community level. Maybe the
most important factor for the definition of a given society is a set of common values and
moral settings; these largely define the preferences of a given society. A good example of
such is the UN charter of human rights which forms a significant building stone for the world
community, the United Nations. Besides this prerequisite the functionality of the society in
the daily life often becomes the main issue in society; one of the main factors for societies at
e.g. community. To maintain and to improve the functionality it is generally necessary to
organize societies such that the responsibility for the management of different functions is
allocated to different organizational units and persons. Sometimes the organizations are
exogenously given but in some cases not. In the latter cases it is thus a responsibility of the
society to identify the most efficient organization possible. The same applies for laws and
regulations. Some societies (e.g. at community level) may have limited or no possibilities to
issue or modify laws and regulations but must instead adhere to such given exogenously.
Considering a state or a country as a society it is realized from the above that such a society
may comprise a hierarchical structure of societies defined at lower levels, such as cantons,
municipalities and communities; each society with their set of attributes partly defined
through the societies at higher level. It is important to realize that for engineering activities on
behalf of society defined at the highest level, such as a state or a country, the societal
instruments available to ensure optimal decision making in practice are limited to
organizational structures, laws and regulations, taxation and subvention. These comprise at
the highest level of a society the instruments to be optimized. The organizational structure
may dictate the availability or resources and thereby set the budgeting constraints for
engineering activities. The laws and regulations may define criteria in regard to acceptable
risks to persons and environment and taxation as well as subvention may be implemented
strategically to direct future developments towards increased sustainability. At lower levels
the optimization of engineering decisions will always be subject to boundary conditions given
through organizations, laws and regulations. Optimal engineering decision making at the
lowest societal level is the case which is usually considered in the literature on optimal
engineering decision making. Optimization of codes and regulations as a means of optimizing
engineering decision making on behalf of society has been addressed in the research and to
some degree in practice; so far only very little efforts have been directed into the optimization
of the societal organizational structures.
The following represents six general decision making levels. However, a further specification
of the possible decision makers may depend on the political structure of the considered
country.