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273. Analysing the compensatory properties of the outranking approach PROMETHEE

Invited abstract in session TD-11: BOR in public policy and environmental decisions, stream Behavioural OR.

Tuesday, 14:30-16:00
Room: 12 (building: 116)

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Sebastian Schär
Environmental Social Sciences (ESS), Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology
2. Jutta Geldermann
Chair of Business Administration and Production Management, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract

Compensation in multiple criteria decision aggregation procedures is commonly understood as allowing a gain in one criterion to offset a loss in another criterion. The compensatory behaviour depends on the selected multicriteria approach but can for some approaches also be steered by their specific design in terms of preference modelling and choice of aggregation logic.
In domains such as environmental or public policy decision-making compensation is not always desired. There may be impacts that pose a loss too serious to be counterbalanced by any kind of good performance on other criteria. Furthermore, compensation may overshadow the existence of strong minority views. It may therefore be necessary to limit the extent to which an aggregation procedure can allow for compensation or explicitly acknowledge it.
The PROMETHEE methods are increasingly applied in environmental and public policy decision making due to their comprehensiveness and explainability. However, there are different statements in the literature about their compensatory properties. Furthermore, guidelines for applicants and analysts which explain how to control and steer the degree of compensation are apparently rare and opaque. We analyse the compensatory behaviour of outranking approaches with particular emphasis on the PROMETHEE methods and compare it to that of multiple attribute value theory approaches with the aim of providing guidelines for application and preventing unwanted compensation behaviour.

Keywords

Status: accepted

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