Tentative guidelines to help choosing an appropriate MCDA method

Despite the development of a large number of refined multicriterion decision aid (MCDA) methods, none can be considered as the 'super method' appropriate to all decision making situations. Hence, how can one choose an appropriate method to a specific decision situation? Recent experimental studies in psychology and behaviour have revealed, on the one hand, that the human thinking is not to be modelled by logical rules and calculations, and, on the other hand, that the response mode affects the preference formation as well as the use of compensatory or noncompensatory strategies. The aim of this paper is to draw a conceptual framework for articulating tentative guidelines to choose an appropriate MCDA method. This paper also presents the results of the comparison of well known multicriterion aggregation procedures (MCAP) on the basis of these guidelines. In our opinion this study can constitute a first step for proposing a methodological approach to select an appropriate MCDA method to a specific decision making situation. Such an approach should be validated and may be integrated into a decision support system. Moreover, the framework suggested is helpful to develop useful methods and to address neglected issues within the field. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.