Group decision-making and the analytic hierarchy process: Exploring the consensus-relevant information content

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is being increasingly applied to managerial and technical group decision-making problems in which it is necessary to determine the preferences of the group as a whole. In such contexts unless there is an acceptable level of group consensus, it is premature to use mathematical techniques to generate ''consensus'' preference vectors. Hence it is necessary to assess the current level of group consensus before applying mathematical techniques to generate a ''consensus'' preference vector. In this paper, we explore possibilities that could result from the use of consensus relevant information embedded in the preference data that arise in group decision-making contexts. We offer a set of similarity measures and consensus indicators for assessing the level of group consensus that could also be used by the group facilitator to develop strategies for increasing the level of group consensus.