Abstract
Although many decisions are made, not by individuals, but in groups such as boards, councils, and committees, the MCDA literature pays little attention to group decision making. Particularly the power relations in groups are overlooked. There is always a power game, however. In national decision-making bodies each member seems to have a weight which is proportional to the size of the organization which he/she represents. In international decision-making bodies the weights of the members are related to the population size or the Gross National Product of the respective countries. Alternatives which are weakly supported by the powerful members have therefore little chance of being adopted by the group, even when MCDA reveals a high degree of support for them under the erroneous assumption that all members have equal weights.
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(1999). Group Decision Making. In: Lootsma, F.A. (eds) Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis via Ratio and Difference Judgement. Applied Optimization, vol 29. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-28008-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-28008-0_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
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