The Secretary Problem Revisited - The Group Decision-Making Perspective

We consider a decision situation where there is an initial set of alternatives that may be augmented, a variant of the problem known in the literature as the "secretary problem". We focus the discussion on the special case of group decision-making, where a group or committee is charged with the responsibility of negotiating the decision. We investigate situations of explicitly stated (multiple) criteria and the simpler situation of no such stated criteria. The former case includes the congenial, the mixed, and the uncongenial cases, where the individuals agree on the direction of all, some, or none of the criteria, respectively. We offer a framework within which a group of individuals can be supported in such a decision process. In the case of explicit criteria, we provide the decision-makers with probability information of the likelihood of finding more preferred alternatives provided the initial set of alternatives is expanded. The framework is tested using a simulated real-world choice situation.