SummaryMulticriteria decision making (MCDM) refers to screening, prioritizing, ranking or selecting the alternatives based on human judgment from among a finite set of ` alternatives in terms of the multiple usually conflicting criteria. A very significant role in MCDM models plays the weights of criteria which usually provide the information about the relative importance of the considered criteria. Several different methods are developed to take criteria priorities into account.The aim of the paper is a comparative overview on several rank ordering weights methods which are considered to convert the ordinal ranking of a number of criteria into numerical weights. Using ranks to elicit weights by some formulas is more reliable than just directly assigning weights to criteria because usually decision makers are more confident about the ranks of some criteria than their weights, and they can agree on ranks more easily. The great advantage of those methods is the fact that they rely only on ordinal information about attribute importance. They can be used for instance in situations of time pressure, quality nature of criteria, lack of knowledge, imprecise, incomplete information or partial information, decision maker's limited attention and information processing capability. The equal weights, rank sum, rank exponent, rank reciprocal as well centroid weights technique are presented. These methods have been selected for their simplicity and effectiveness.

The main purpose of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the rational choice approach, followed by an identification of several of the major criticisms of RCT and its conceptual and empirical limitations. It goes on to present a few key initiatives to develop alternative, more realistic approaches which transcend some of the limitations of Rational Choice Theory (RCT). Finally, the article presents a few concluding reflections and a table comparing similarities and differences between the mainstream RCT and some of the initial components of an emerging choice theory. Our method has been to conduct a brief selective review of rational choice theoretical formulations and applications as well as a review of diverse critical literature in the social sciences where rational choice has been systematically criticized. We have focused on a number of leading contributors (among others, several Nobel Prize Recipients in economics, who have addressed rational choice issues). So this article makes no claim for completeness. The review maps a few key concepts and assumptions underpinning the conceptual model and empirical applications of RCT. It reviews also a range of critical arguments and evidence of limitations. It identifies selected emerging concepts and theoretical revisions and adaptations to choice theory and what they entail. The results obtained, based on our literature reviews and analyses, are the identification of several major limitations of RCT as well as selected modifications and adaptations of choice theory which overcome or promise to overcome some of the RCT limitations. Thus, the article with Table 1 in hand provides a point of departure for follow-up systematic reviews and more precise questions for future theory development. The criticisms and adaptations of RCT have contributed to greater realism, empirical relevance, and increased moral considerations. The developments entail, among other things: the now well-known cognitive limitations ("bounded rationality") and, for instance, the role of satisficing rather than maximizing in decision-making to deal with cognitive T. Burns, E. Roszkowska 196 complexity and the uncertainties of multiple values; choice situations are re-contextualized with psychology, sociology, economic, and material conditions and factors which are taken into account explicitly and insightfully in empirical and theoretical work. Part of the contextualization concerns the place of multiple values, role and norm contradictions, and moral dilemmas in much choice behavior. In conclusion, the article suggests that the adaptations and modifications made in choice theory have led to substantial fragmentation of choice theory and as of yet no integrated approach has appeared to simply displace RCT.

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One of the activities within the prenegotiation preparation phase is to create an analytical basis for decision support in negotiations. This is done by defining the structure of the negotiation problem and eliciting the negotiators' preferences. The negotiation analysis suggests using the simplest decision support methods here, which are often based on preference aggregation paradigm, such as direct rating. Some recent experimental works, however, indicate various cognitive and

1 StreszczenieW opracowaniu przeprowadzono wielowymiarową analizę porównawczą poziomu rozwoju społecz-nego województw Polski w kontekście postępów realizacji koncepcji zrównoważonego rozwoju w roku 2005 oraz 2013. Do analizy zastosowano metodę porządkowania liniowego TOPSIS oraz metodę porządko-wania nieliniowego Warda. Metody te dzięki łącznej analizie odpowiednio dobranych wskaźników cząstkowych pozwoliły: ocenić ogólny poziom rozwoju województw, ustalić ich ranking, wyodrębnić w miarę jednorodne grupy regionów o podobnym poziomie rozwoju społecznego. Pokazano, że w 2013 roku w stosunku do 2005 roku nastąpił wzrost ogólnego poziomu rozwoju społecznego we wszystkich województwach. W opracowaniu wykorzystano dane Banku Danych Lokalnych GUS.Słowa kluczowe: zrównoważony rozwój, rozwój społeczny, wielowymiarowa analiza porównawcza, wskaźniki indywidualne, TOPSIS, metoda Warda ASSESSMENT OF IMPLEMENTING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT IN POLISH REGIONS REGARDING SOCIAL LEVEL IN 2005 AND 2013 YEAR SummaryThe research presents multidimensional analysis of the level of social development of Polish voivodeships in the context of practicing the concept of sustainable development in 2005 and 2013. The analysis is based on the use of TOPSIS method of linear ordering and Ward's method of non-linear ordering. The multi-method approach resulted in the assessment of the general level of development of the studied voivodeships, their ranking, classification according to their social advancement, and spatial and temporal trend change analysis within the area of interest. The results show that the year 2013 is 1 Dr Marzena Filipowicz-Chomko -badania zostały zrealizowane w ramach pracy statutowej nr S/WI/1/14 i sfinansowane ze środków na naukę MNiSW.

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