Are incomplete and self-confident preference relations better in multicriteria decision making? A simulation-based investigation

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Incomplete preference relations and self-confident preference relations have been widely used in multicriteria decision-making problems. However, there is no strong evidence, in the current literature, to validate their use in decision-making. This paper reports on the design of two bounded rationality principle based simulation methods, and detailed experimental results, that aim at providing evidence to answer the following two questions: (1) what are the conditions under which incomplete preference relations are better than complete preference relations?; and (2) can self-confident preference relations improve the quality of decisions? The experimental results show that when the decision-maker is of medium rational degree, incomplete preference relations with a degree of incompleteness between 20% and 40% outperform complete preference relations; otherwise, the opposite happens. Furthermore, in most cases the quality of the decision making improves when using self-confident preference relations instead of incomplete preference relations. The paper ends with the presentation of a sensitivity analysis that contributes to the robustness of the experimental conclusions

A chi-square method for priority derivation in group decision making with incomplete reciprocal preference relations

This paper proposes a chi-square method (CSM) to obtain a priority vector for group decision making (GDM) problems where decision-makers’ (DMs’) assessment on alternatives is furnished as incomplete reciprocal preference relations with missing values. Relevant theorems and an iterative algorithm about CSM are proposed. Saaty’s consistency ratio concept is adapted to judge whether an incomplete reciprocal preference relation provided by a DM is of acceptable consistency. If its consistency is unacceptable, an algorithm is proposed to repair it until its consistency ratio reaches a satisfactory threshold. The repairing algorithm aims to rectify an inconsistent incomplete reciprocal preference relation to one with acceptable consistency in addition to preserving the initial preference information as much as possible. Finally, four examples are examined to illustrate the applicability and validity of the proposed method, and comparative analyses are provided to show its advantages over existing approaches

A Local Adjustment Method to Improve Multiplicative Consistency of Fuzzy Reciprocal Preference Relations

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Preferences that verify the transitivity property are usually referred to as rational or consistent preferences. Existent methods to improve the consistency of inconsistent fuzzy reciprocal preference relations (FPRs) fail to retain the original preference values because they always derive a new FPR. This article presents a new inconsistency identification and modification (IIM) method to detect and rectify only the most inconsistent elements of an inconsistent FPR. As such, the proposed IIM can be considered a local adjustment method to improve multiplicative consistency (MC) of FPRs. The case of inconsistent FPRs with missing values, i.e., incomplete FPRs, is addressed with the estimation of the missing preferences with a constrained nonlinear optimization model by the application of the IIM method. The implementation process of the proposed algorithms is illustrated with numerical examples. Simulation experiments and comparisons with existent methods are also included to show that the new method requires fewer iterations than existent methods to improve the MC of FPRs and achieves better MC level, while preserving the original preference information as much as possible than the existent methods. Thus, the results presented in this article demonstrate the correctness, effectiveness, and robustness of the proposed method

An overview on managing additive consistency of reciprocal preference relations for consistency-driven decision making and Fusion: Taxonomy and future directions

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The reciprocal preference relation (RPR) is a powerful tool to represent decision makers’ preferences in decision making problems. In recent years, various types of RPRs have been reported and investigated, some of them being the ‘classical’ RPRs, interval-valued RPRs and hesitant RPRs. Additive consistency is one of the most commonly used property to measure the consistency of RPRs, with many methods developed to manage additive consistency of RPRs. To provide a clear perspective on additive consistency issues of RPRs, this paper reviews the consistency measurements of the different types of RPRs. Then, consistency-driven decision making and information fusion methods are also reviewed and classified into four main types: consistency improving methods; consistency-based methods to manage incomplete RPRs; consistency control in consensus decision making methods; and consistency-driven linguistic decision making methods. Finally, with respect to insights gained from prior researches, further directions for the research are proposed