A consensus-reaching model considering decision-makers' willingness in social network-based large-scale group decision-making

For social network-based large-scale group decision-making scenarios, it is important to consider the willingness of decision-makers (DMs) in the consensus-reaching process (CRP). The bounded confidence (BC) value reflects decision-makers' willingness. However, the BC value is usually set as a fixed value, ignoring that people's psychological acceptance changes dynamically in the CRP, which may lead to inaccurate results. Besides, existing consensus-reaching mechanisms do not sufficiently comply with DMs' willingness. To address the above issues, we first introduce the adaptive BC value that better measures DMs' willingness. Furthermore, a new consensusreaching mechanism is developed to prioritise DMs' willingness. This mechanism incorporates structural hole spanners in negotiations, enhancing communication between communities and better reflecting DMs' willingness in the CRP. Then, a numerical example is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of our model. Finally, several simulation experiments are conducted, and the results show that our model is reliable.