Group Decision Methodology to Support Watershed Committees in Choosing Among Combinations of Alternatives

Marcella Maia Urtiga (), Danielle Costa Morais (), Keith W. Hipel () and D. Marc Kilgour ()
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Marcella Maia Urtiga: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco
Danielle Costa Morais: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco
Keith W. Hipel: University of Waterloo
D. Marc Kilgour: University of Waterloo

Group Decision and Negotiation, 2017, vol. 26, issue 4, No 5, 729-752

Abstract: Abstract A group decision-making methodology is proposed that permits each member of a group to state his or her preferences with respect to combinations of alternative solutions to a problem during a collective process to arrive at a compromise via a special voting procedure. The possible combinations of alternatives are systematically generated using an option form approach. Decision-makers (DMs) individually rank combinations based on their preferences by providing ordinal information in an interactive way, reducing the cognitive burden of making many comparisons or defining tradeoffs. In this approach, each DM expresses his or her preferences using logical preference statements regarding combinations of alternatives. A group recommendation is obtained after aggregating the final individual ranks through a voting procedure, and a voting support system, based on classification by quartiles. The voting procedure is simple and transparent for voters and does not present severe computational difficulties, thereby making this approach an appropriate tool for employment in the context of group-decision making. To illustrate its applicability, the proposed methodology is applied to a realistic decision problem faced by a watershed committee in Brazil.

Keywords: Group decision-making; Water resources management; Aggregation of individual preferences; Ordinal preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1007/s10726-016-9515-5

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