Aggregation of analytic hierarchy process models based on similarities in decision makers' preferences

The analytic hierarchy process is widely used in both individual and group decision making environments. In this paper we investigate its applicability to model a specific class of decentralized decision problems where many decision makers take individual subjective decisions using locally available information. In such subjective decision making environments, it is neither possible nor appropriate to use group preference aggregation techniques to model the problem as a single group decision problem. An approach to identify homogeneous subgroups of decision makers based on similarities in preferences and to aggregate preferences within each subgroup is proposed. This approach is validated using employment preferences of 70 subjects modeled using the analytic hierarchy process. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.