Are multi-criteria decision-making tools useful? An experimental comparative study of three methods

Alessio Ishizaka, Sajid Siraj

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

479 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Many decision makers still question the usefulness of multi-criteria decision-making methods and prefer to rely on intuitive decisions. In this study we evaluated a number of multi-criteria decision-making tools for their usefulness using incentive-based experiments, which is a novel approach in operations research but common in psychology and experimental economics. In this experiment the participants were asked to compare five coffee shops to win a voucher for their best-rated shop. We found that, although the usefulness of different multi-criteria decision-making tools varied to some extent, all the tools were found to be useful in the sense that, when they decided to change their ranking, they followed the recommendation of the multi-criteria decision-making tool. Moreover, the level of inconsistency in the judgements provided had no significant effect on the usefulness of these tools.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)462-471
Number of pages10
JournalEuropean Journal of Operational Research
Volume264
Issue number2
Early online date26 May 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Jan 2018

Keywords

  • Decision analysis
  • SMART
  • AHP
  • MACBETH
  • experimental evaluation

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Are multi-criteria decision-making tools useful? An experimental comparative study of three methods'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this