A FOUNDATION FOR COMPETENCE SET ANALYSIS

For each decision problem, there is a competence set consisting of knowledge, information and skills for its effective solution. How the decision-maker acquires and expands his/her competence set plays a key role in the process and quality of decision-making. This paper provides a mathematical foundation for studying competence sets, their expansion process and stability. Time and cost functions for expansion, reachable domains, effective expansion using minimal spanning trees, random set decomposition of competence sets, marginal analysis, connectivity, metrization and stability of competence sets are some key concepts introduced.