Incorporating stakeholders’ knowledge in group decision-making

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to characterize the group decision-making process. Three basic questions should be considered in group decision-making: (i) how to extract stakeholders' knowledge and preferences, (ii) how to combine these preferences and knowledge coherently and (iii) how to conduct discussions and resolve conflicts. To respond to these questions, this paper distinguishes and discusses several elements characterizing the group decision-making process. More specifically, the paper discusses the following topics: techniques for acquiring stakeholders' knowledge, aggregation strategies and rules, preference parameters elicitation techniques, stakeholder weighting and conflict resolution. The paper also includes a brief discussion of several real-world case studies in which the authors of this study participated.

Illustrating Conflicts among Project Stakeholders in Sustainable Project Management

“…Likewise, Chakhar & Saad (2014) distinguishes and discusses several elements characterizing the group decision-making process regarding extracting, combining and communicating multi-stakeholder preferences given complex group dynamics and decision systems. Summing up the propositions of this article as concluded by Chakhar & Saad (2014), the noteworthy findings suggest for (1) mixed aggregation strategies (both input and output oriented) which advocates for collaboration between decision makers, (2) categorized aggregation rules which advocates for consensus between majority and minority of decision makers, (3) preference parameter elicitation techniques (both direct and indirect) which denotes the level of cognitive efforts from experts in group decision-making process, and (4) weighting of stakeholders for contribution of each decision maker to the collective decision.…”

“…Having said this, such different phenomena of stakeholder-centric constructions and compositions of conflicts pose an interesting research exploration into the project management landscape and contemporary literatures laying the foundation for prototyping the potential typology of conflicts from multifaceted perspectives (Adderley & Mellor, 2014;Ayuso et al, 2014;Carlon & Downs, 2014;Chakhar & Saad, 2014;Garriga, 2014;Golob & Podnar, 2014;Hörisch et al, 2014;Moriarty, 2014;Ni et al, 2014;Oriordan & Fairbrass, 2014;Retolaza et al, 2014;Scheer et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2014). The problem formulation thus depicts the clear-cut research gap in understanding the typology, categorization and classification of conflicts relevant to the project management domain at a meso level of analysis as focused on an organization's project management context.…”

“…The ability to recognize the influence of various stakeholders is a significant skill for successful project managers (Chakhar & Saad, 2014;Garriga, 2014;Bourne & Walker, 2005), however without consideration to the conflicting needs and expectations of a diverse range of project stakeholders at various project phases (Golob & Podnar, 2014;Hörisch et al, 2014), a project will not be considered sustainable despite the fulfillment of time, budget and scope-commonly known as the "iron triangle" of any project (Bourne & Walker, 2005). The multi-stakeholder perspective is often deemed as the sustainable perspective for the project management (Silvius et al, 2012), nevertheless the underpinning conflicts among the project stakeholders inevitably exist with due scale and scope-tackling which determines the project success end of the day (Retolaza et al, 2014;Scheer et al, 2014).…”

“…With this evolutionary, emerging and changing properties of conflicts in the project management context (Tukiainen et al, 2010), therefore understanding the different set-ups of conflict also becomes significant for the sustainable project management (Adderley & Mellor, 2014;Ayuso et al, 2014;Carlon & Downs, 2014;Chakhar & Saad, 2014;Garriga, 2014;Golob & Podnar, 2014;Hörisch et al, 2014;Moriarty, 2014;Ni et al, 2014;Oriordan & Fairbrass, 2014;Retolaza et al, 2014;Scheer et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2014). Okoye et al (2013) have examined the nexus of corporate disclosure of social performance on corporate stakeholder conflict management where stakeholder groups represent divergent interests in the activities of any corporation.…”

“…Ensuring high quality leader-member exchanges (Northhouse, 2013) will avoid stakeholder conflicts building effective dyads and network partnerships throughout the project life-cycle (Cobb, 2012;Tolbert & Hall, 2009). The studies of Graen and Uhl-Bien as elucidated by Northhouse (2013) are quite relevant for project management which suggests leaderships making in three progressive stages: (1) the stranger phase-with lower quality LMX exchanges and self-interested actions/performances of stakeholders, (2) the acquaintance phase-with medium quality LMX exchanges and room for more roles, responsibilities and challenges for stakeholders, and (3) the mature partnership phase-with high quality LMX exchanges and effective dependencies with the stakeholders of the project-in order to understand the progressive conflict stages amongst the project stakeholders as well (Carlon & Downs, 2014;Chakhar & Saad, 2014;Garriga, 2014).…”