An integrated framework to assess complex cultural and natural heritage systems with Multi-Attribute Value Theory

From stakeholders analysis to cognitive mapping and Multi-Attribute Value Theory: An integrated approach for policy support

“…The reader interested in more examples concerning the application of MAVT in environmental decision making contexts car refer for instance to Schuwirth et al (2012) and to Ferretti and Comino (2015).…”

“…Belton and Stewart, 2002;Stewart et al, 2010), as detailed in section 2.2, (ii) stakeholders analysis in the form of a power interest matrix is particularly suitable for complementing the Multi Attribute Value Theory technique given that the latter in a collaborative decision process context does not efficiently support the achievement of a consensus in the preference elicitation phase (e.g. Ferretti and Comino, 2015), thus calling for the need to aggregate different viewpoints according to their different levels of importance, as discussed in section 2.3 and in the conclusions, and, finally, (iii) stakeholders analysis has shown to be a very important preliminary step in multi attribute decision making processes (Dente, 2014), as detailed in section 2.1. The approach proposed in the present paper has thus an innovative value, which stems not only from the experimentation of the mix of the above mentioned specific techniques to support the overall planning process with a participatory approach, but also from their testing in the context of public policy making and cultural heritage management, where the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods seems to yield greater benefits (Myllyviita et al, 2014).…”

“…By being able to handle quantitative as well as qualitative data, MAVT plays a crucial role in the field of environmental decisionmaking and policy design where many aspects are often intangible (Ferretti and Comino, 2015).…”

“…Since in a collaborative decision process it is more difficult for the experts to agree on which attribute they would like to swing first and on which score to give to that specific swing (Ferretti and Comino, 2015), in this work each expert has been interviewed separately by means of a specific questionnaire. In order to provide an example, Figure 8 illustrates the questionnaire filled in by the expert in the economic evaluation field while Figure 9 summarizes the overall set of weights elicited from the whole panel of experts.…”

“…As it usually happens in complex environmental decision making contexts, it is almost impossible to reach a consensus when adopting the swing weights procedure in a group decision making context (e.g. Ferretti and Comino, 2015), i.e. it is really difficult than more than one participant agree not only on which attribute to swing first from the worst performance level to the best performance level but also on the value to give to that swing from 0 to 100.…”