Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science

2001 Edition
| Editors: Saul I. Gass, Carl M. Harris

Group decision making

  • Fatemeh Mariam Zahedi
Reference work entry
First Online:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-0611-X_406
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Group decision making focuses on problems in which there is more than one decision maker and more than one choice. The choices or alternatives have multiple attributes. In other words, the decision makers must consider more than one objective or criterion in their decision. Hence, group decisions involve multiple criteria and multiple decision makers. Since preferences and objectives of individual decision makers vary and may be in conflict, arriving at a decision is far more complex in a group setting than in individual cases.

Group decision covers a wide range of collective decision processes and encompasses numerous methods designed under various assumptions and for different circumstances. One can divide the group decision approaches into the following categories: utility theory, group consensus, group analytic hierarchy process, social choice theory, and game theory.

GROUP UTILITY ANALYSIS

Group utility theory is based on the von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function. This method...

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Copyright information

© Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001

Authors and Affiliations

  • Fatemeh Mariam Zahedi
    • 1
  1. 1.University of WisconsinMilwaukeeUSA