State-of-the-Art Prescriptive Criteria Weight Elicitation

• Published in: Advances in Decision Sciences Vol. 2012; no. 2012; pp. 1 - 24-006
• Main Authors: Riabacke, Mona, Ekenberg, Love, Danielson, Mats
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cairo, Egypt Hindawi Limiteds 2012; Hindawi Puplishing Corporation; Hindawi Publishing Corporation; Asia University, Taiwan
• Subjects: Assessments; Cognition & reasoning; Computer and Systems Sciences; Criteria; data- och systemvetenskap; Decision analysis; Decision making; Decision theory; Expected utility; Mathematical analysis; Organization theory; Psychology; Rationality; Spreads; State of the art; Strategic management; Tasks; اتخاذ القرارات
• ISSN: 2090-3359; 2090-3367; 2090-3367
• DOI: 10.1155/2012/276584

Comparatively few of the vast amounts of decision analytical methods suggested have been widely spread in actual practice. Some approaches have nevertheless been more successful in this respect than others. Quantitative decision making has moved from the study of decision theory founded on a single criterion towards decision support for more realistic decision-making situations with multiple, often conflicting, criteria. Furthermore, the identified gap between normative and descriptive theories seems to suggest a shift to more prescriptive approaches. However, when decision analysis applications are used to aid prescriptive decision-making processes, additional demands are put on these applications to adapt to the users and the context. In particular, the issue of weight elicitation is crucial. There are several techniques for deriving criteria weights from preference statements. This is a cognitively demanding task, subject to different biases, and the elicited values can be heavily dependent on the method of assessment. There have been a number of methods suggested for assessing criteria weights, but these methods have properties which impact their applicability in practice. This paper provides a survey of state-of-the-art weight elicitation methods in a prescriptive setting.