Representing decision-makers using styles of behavior: An approach designed for group decision support systems

Abstract

Supporting decision-making processes when the elements of a group are geographically dispersed and on a tight schedule is a complex task. Aiming to support decision-makers anytime and anywhere, Web-based Group Decision Support Systems have been studied. However, the limitations in the decision-makers' interactions associated to this scenario bring new challenges. In this work, we propose a set of behavioral styles from which decision-makers' intentions can be modelled into agents. The goal is that, besides having agents represent typical preferences of the decision-makers (towards alternatives and criteria), they can also represent their intentions. To do so, we conducted a survey with 64 participants in order to find homogeneous operating values so as to numerically define the proposed behavioral styles in four dimensions. In addition, we also propose a communication model that simulates the dialogues made by decision-makers in face-to-face meetings. We developed a prototype to simulate decision scenarios and found that agents are capable of acting according to the decision-makers' intentions and fundamentally benefit from different possible behavioral styles, just as a face-toface meeting benefits from the heterogeneity of its participants.

A Framework for Group Decision-Making: Including Cognitive and Affective Aspects in a MCDA Method for Alternatives Rejection

“…As mentioned before, the framework proposed in this work is a variant of the Cognitive Analytic Process method which was previously presented in [21] and has been formulated in order to consider the possibility of suggesting alternatives to be rejected (eliminated) by decision-makers throughout the decision-making process. The model is divided in six main steps: the first step is the definition of the multi-criteria problem; the second step is the definition of the weights associated to each alternative and criterion; the third step is the adjustment of the weights associated with the alternatives to consider credibility, expertise and styles of behavior (these notions have been previously introduced in [22,23]); the fourth step is the classification of each criterion and the classification of each alternative based on the new adjusted values; the fifth step is the selection of the alternatives that have the worst classification; the last step is the measurement of the consistency for each selected alternative.…”

A Multi-agent System Framework for Dialogue Games in the Group Decision-Making Context

“…In order to empirically evaluate the proposed framework, we implemented an argumentation-based dialogue model [10,11] designed to the group decision-making context. In order to make the scenario more complex, the agents were defined with different social aspects: behavior styles, levels of expertise and credibility [12]. A decision scenario that consisted of the acquisition of 100 cars to renew the fleet of an organization was also defined (the considered multi-criterion problem can be found in Table 1).…”

A web‐based group decision support system for multicriteria problems

“…All these concepts have been studied in previous works and represent the intentions and goals of the decision-maker for the selected meeting [14-17]; • Style of Behavioris the expected behavior or the desired behavior of the agent in the negotiation process. We have followed the work and concepts proposed in [14] and we have identified five main styles of behavior which are Integrating, Compromising, Dominating, Avoiding and Obliging. These five styles are differentiated in four dimensions that represent how the decision-maker intends to behave throughout the decision-making process.…”