Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Bozorg-Haddad, Omid, 1974‐ author. | Zolghadr‐Asli, Babak, author. |
Loáiciga, Hugo A., author.
Title: A handbook on multi‐attribute decision‐making methods / Omid
Bozorg‐Haddad, Babak Zolghadr‐Asli, Hugo A. Loáiciga.
Description: Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2021. | Series: Wiley series in
operations research and management science | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020034049 (print) | LCCN 2020034050 (ebook) | ISBN
9781119563495 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119563471 (adobe pdf) | ISBN
9781119563389 (epub) | ISBN 9781119563501 (obook)
Subjects: LCSH: Multiple criteria decision making.
Classification: LCC T57.95 .B69 2021 (print) | LCC T57.95 (ebook) | DDC
658.4/03–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034049
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034050
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: © connel/Shutterstock
Preface
Multi‐attribute decision‐making (MADM) problems describe a situation in which the decision‐makers evaluate a finite number of pre‐defined alternatives that are explicitly known at the beginning of the solution process with regard to a set of often conflictive evaluating criteria. It would not be an exaggeration to state that almost everyone, whether in their personal or professional life, faces decision‐making problems on a daily basis. Although there are numerous MADM methods at the decision‐makers’ disposal to cope with real‐world decision‐making problems there is still lacking a source that compiles and explains the various MADM methods in a clear and systematic manner that would make their understanding, comparison, and application straightforward for those who require implementing these techniques. Most existing sources that deal with MADM methods are generally focused on results of the applications of these methods, but overlook basic and unifying concepts. Therefore, those who are eager to gain an overview of these methods must endure hardships of searching through various sources which are written in specialized form and are difficult to understand.
The book at hand fills the cited knowledge and educational gap and describes the most important MADM methods, with an assessment of their performance in solving multiple problems encompassing many fields of inquiry and practice in a clear and systematic manner. The proposed book contains 12 chapters plus two appendices. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the decision‐making and its fundamental concepts. Each of chapters 2 through 12 is devoted to a separate MADM method. In total, some 20 MADM methods are presented in the book. Appendix I describes a weight assignment method; Appendix II contains an application of MADM methods. The chapters are arranged based on pedagogical purposes so that the audience can easily engage with the presented materials in each given chapter. Nevertheless, the basic idea is to ensure that each chapter can stand alone by providing the audience with a brief description of the materials and methods required to cover every aspect and mathematical concepts used in each given method. In other words, while a highly engaged audience can go through the entire book to gain a deep understanding of MADM methods and their theoretical foundation, some can aim at a specific chapter without facing any difficulty in understanding the materials presented for the reviewed MADM methods. In essence, each chapter describing a specific MADM method, or in some case a family of methods, starts with a brief literature review of the methods’ development followed by a description of its theoretical origins. The philosophical foundations of each method are discussed and mapped to the mathematical framework of the specified MADM method. Each chapter contains a stepwise description of its pertinent method that serves as the guideline for implementing the method with the purpose of coping with real‐world MADM problems.
February 14, 2021
Iran and USA
Omid Bozorg‐Haddad
Babak Zolghadr‐Asli
Hugo A. Loáiciga
1 An Overview of the Art of Decision‐making
1.1 Introduction
What motivates one to make a decision? Finding the precise reason behind these motivations might not be as easy as it might seem. Nevertheless, given that these choices are shaping the world around us, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that the answer to the aforementioned question may facilitate understanding the workings of many world phenomena. Just for a moment consider the possibility of knowing the motivations prompting person to make decisions. If that were achieved, predicting humans’ behavior from the simple every‐day activity to the most sophisticated social, economic, and political contexts would be possible.
Now let us change the scope of the question; how can one make a good choice? This time we may be more successful in finding a more proper answer. Let us take a moment to consider the description of the act of decision‐making. The Oxford dictionary defines decision‐making as “the process of deciding about something important, especially in a group of people or in an organization.” From a psychological point of view, however, decision‐making is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several alternative possibilities. Each decision‐making process produces a final choice, which may or may not prompt action (Tzeng and Huang 2011). In other words, the decision‐making merely refers to the act choosing among a set of solutions, rather than the procedural requirements of executing the selected set of alternatives.
The decision‐making process is founded on a four‐stage analytical procedure (Vroom and Jago 1974; Bell et al. 1988; Weber and Coskunoglu 1990; Kleindorfer et al. 1993). The first stage of the decision‐making process is better known as descriptive analytics or positive analytics, which is concerned with describing observed behaviors of the stakeholders who are involved in the decision‐making process, mainly by looking at the their past performance and understanding such behavior either by mining historical data sets, and/or looking for the behavioral and social, psychological, and even neurology reasoning motivations that can best describe the course of actions made by the stockholders of the decision‐making problem (Tzeng and Huang 2011; Santos and Rosati 2015). Descriptive analysis is outside the scope of this book in spite of its psychological nature being pertinent to decision‐making process.
The predictive analytic stage concerns the prediction of what is likely to occur given a set of circumstances, which takes place after discerning the motivational patterns behind decision‐making problems through descriptive analytical techniques. The application of predictive analysis is limited to the decision‐making under uncertainty and, admittedly, not all decision‐making problems require such approach. Nevertheless, if necessary, the historical data sets may be reviewed during this second stage to determine the probability of an event or the likelihood of a situation’s occurrence (Bell et al. 1988; Kleindorfer et al. 1993). Exploring this phase of the decision‐making process is left to readers given the scope and aims of this book.
The third stage of the decision‐making process is the normative analysis. The term “normative” generally refers to relating an item to an evaluative standard through assessing and making judgments about the item’s