MULTIPLE PARTICIPANT-MULTIPLE CRITERIA DECISION-MAKING

Meaningful connections among different types of decision making situations are established in order to improve the development of useful decision technologies for application to real world problems. More specifically, an assertion is put forward that suggests that single participant-multiple criteria (SPMC) and multiple participant-single criterion (MPSC) decision making problems may be treated in essentially the same way. In this way, decision technologies that are already available can be suitably refined for use in studying both SPMC and MPSC decision situations. Another assertion is made that a multiple participant-multiple criteria (MPMC) decision situation can be converted to a MPSC decision situation. In order to simpilfy the explanation, illustrative applications are utilized throughout the paper. Finally, worthwhile directions for future research are summarized in the last section.