Tackling the question of how to effectively aggregate uncertain preference information in multiple structures given by decision-making groups, Theory and Approaches of Unascertained Group Decision-Making focuses on group aggregation methods based on uncertainty preference information. It expresses the complexity existing in each group decision-making process by employing complex networks and studying various methods of aggregating preference information from various unascertained, time-series based decision-making groups' structures. Written by Jianjun Zhu, director of the Chinese Society for Optimization, Overall Planning, and Economic Mathematics, the book starts by examining case studies of group decision making. It discusses consistency measuring and ranking methods of interval number reciprocal judgment matrix and interval number complementary judgment matrix. Next, it presents an unascertained number preference and a three-point interval number preference. Investigating linguistic preferences, the text provides two consistencies definitions. It considers the aggregating methods of several uncertain preferences as well as the multistage aggregating model of uncertain preference. The final chapter proposes an aggregating model of multistage linguistic information based on TOPSIS. The research in this book is supported by a number of scientific foundations from the People’s Republic of China, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China; the Social Science Foundation of China, Jiangsu Province; and the Soft Science Foundation of China.

Tackling the question of how to effectively aggregate uncertain preference information in multiple structures given by decision-making groups, Theory and Approaches of Unascertained Group Decision-Making focuses on group aggregation methods based on uncertainty preference information. It expresses the complexity existing in each group decision-maki

This book mainly introduces a series of theory and approaches of group decision-making based on several types of uncertain linguistic expressions and addresses their applications. The book pursues three major objectives: (1) to introduce some techniques to model several types of natural linguistic expressions; (2) to handle these expressions in group decision-making; and (3) to clarify the involved approaches by practical applications. The book is especially valuable for readers to understand how linguistic expressions could be employed and operated to make decisions, and motivates researchers to consider more types of natural linguistic expressions in decision analysis under uncertainties.

This monograph is intended for an advanced undergraduate or graduate course of engineering and management science. as well as for persons in business. industry. military or in any field. who want an introductory and a capsule look into the methods of group decision making under multiple criteria. This is a sequel to our previous works entitled "Multiple Objective Decision Making--Methods and Applications (No. 164 of the Lecture Notes). and "Multiple Attribute Decision Making--Methods and Applications (No. 186 of the Lecture Notes). Moving from a single decision maker (the consideration of Lecture Notes 164 and 186) to a multiple decision maker setting introduces a great deal of complexity into the analysis. The problem is no longer the selection of the most preferred alternative among the nondominated solutions according to one individual's (single decision maker's) preference structure. The analysis is extended to account for the conflicts among different interest groups who have different objectives. goals. and so forth. Group decision making under multiple criteria includes such diverse and interconnected fields as preference analysis. utility theory. social choice theory. committee decision theory. theory of voting. game theory. expert evaluation analysis. aggregation of qualitative factors. economic equilibrium theory. etc; these are simplified and systematically classified for beginners. This work is to provide readers with a capsule look into the existing methods. their characteristics. and applicability in the complexity of group decision making.

The research activities in group decision making have dramatically increased over the last decade. In particular, the application of multiple attribute decision-making methods to group decision-making problems occupies a vast area in the related literature. However, there is no systematic classification scheme for these researches.

The present work explores improvements in group decision-making. It begins with a practical example using state-of-the-art techniques for a complex, high-risk decision. We show how these techniques can reveal a better alternative. Although we created an improved decision process, decision-makers were apt to protect their own organizations instead of the project. This tendency was reduced over the course of the decision-making process but inspired the first conceptual component of this work. The first concept describes the "Cost of Conflict" that can arise in a group decision, using game theory to represent the non-cooperative approach and comparing the outcome to the cooperative approach. We demonstrate that it is possible for the group to settle on a non-Paretto Nash equilibrium. The sensitivity of the decision-maker weights is revealed which led to the second conceptual portion of this work. The second concept applies social network theory to study the influence between decision-makers in a group decision. By examining the number and strength of connections between decision-makers, we build from intrinsically derived weights to extrinsically derived weights by adding the network influences from other decision-makers. The two conceptual approaches provide a descriptive view of non-cooperative decisions where decision-makers still influence each other. These concepts suggest a prescriptive approach to achieving a higher group utility.

Extension innovation method is an approach to originality generation. It utilizes basic theories of Extenics, a new discipline for modeling contradiction problems with formalized methods and transformation, to establish a modeling and quantification combined method that can be learned effortlessly and operated conveniently. This book introduces and analyzes commonly used extension innovation methods are introduced and analyzed thoroughly. It makes it easy for readers at different levels and of different knowledge backgrounds to study. Highly accessible cases faciliate understanding and application of the models.

One of the main challenges facing contemporary society is to understand how people can make decisions together. Understanding Collective Decision Making builds on evolutionary theories and presents an analytical tool to analyse and visualise collective decision making. By combining theoretical research with real world case studies, the authors provide a coherent and conclusive solution to the often fragmented and dispersed literature on the subject.

First Published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A company with effective cost reduction activities in place will be better positioned to adapt to shifting economic conditions. In fact, it can make the difference between organizations that thrive and those that simply survive during times of economic uncertainty. Reducing Process Costs with Lean, Six Sigma, and Value Engineering Techniques covers