Value of agreement in decision analysis: Concept, measures and application

Abstract

In multi-criteria decision analysis workshops, participants often appraise the options individually before discussing the scoring as a group. The individual appraisals lead to score ranges within which the group then seeks the necessary agreement to identify their preferred option. Preference programming enables some options to be identified as dominated even before the group agrees on a precise scoring for them. Workshop participants usually face time pressure to make a decision. Decision support can be provided by flagging options for which further agreement on their scores seems particularly valuable. By valuable, we mean the opportunity to identify other options as dominated (using preference programming) without having their precise scores agreed beforehand. The present paper quantifies this Value of Agreement and extends the concept to portfolio decision analysis and criterion weights. The new concept is validated through a case study in recruitment.

A Concentration Ratio for Nonlinear Best Worst Method

“…This means that in the context of group decision-making, having multiple optimal solutions (for all or some DMs) could result in a higher chance (compared to the case that each DM has a unique solution) for a compromise solution to coincide (or at least be very close) to one of the optimal solutions. Although having multiple optimal weights is advantageous in some cases, especially in group decision-making problems, [24][25][26][27][28] where debating plays a central role, 29 in other cases, having a unique solution is preferred. Rezaei 30 developed a linear approximation model for the BWM which provides a unique solution.…”