A NEW DECISION MAKING METHOD BASED ON DISTANCE MEASURES AND ITS APPLICATION IN EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT

We introduce a new decision making model based on the use of distance measures, generalized aggregation operators and a unified framework between the weighted average (WA) and the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator. This approach is based on the use of the generalized ordered weighted averaging weighted averaging distance (GOWAWAD) operator. It is an aggregation operator that uses generalized distances (or Minkowksi distances) by using generalized and quasi-arithmetic means. It also uses a unified framework between the WA and the OWA considering the degree of importance that each concept has in the aggregation. We study some of its main properties and a wide range of particular cases such as the weighted Hamming distance, the OWA distance, the arithmetic weighted Hamming distance, the arithmetic OWA distance, the OWAWA distance, the Euclidean OWAWA distance and a lot of other cases. We analyze the applicability of this new approach and we see that it is very broad because it can be applied in a wide range of fields such as statistics, soft computing, economics, decision theory and engineering. Theoretically, we could state that all the previous models and applications based on the weighted Minkowski distance and the generalized OWA distance can be revised and extended with this new approach because the previous studies will be included in this framework as a particular case. Therefore, this new approach will give a more complete representation of the problem. In this paper, we focus on a decision making problem about strategic management where a university is analyzing its general policy for the next period. They are considering the possibility of increasing the number of available positions for students when entering an undergraduate program. We see that depending on the particular type of aggregation operator used the results may lead to different decisions.