Title: An efficient verifiable process for ordinal pairwise comparisons

Authors: Alexander I. Mechitov; Helen M. Moshkovich

Addresses: College of Business, University of Montevallo, Montevallo, AL 35115, USA ' College of Business, University of Montevallo, Montevallo, AL 35115, USA

Abstract: Ordinal consistency forms the basis for rationality in pairwise comparisons and is expressed as transitivity of binary preferences. We propose a new approach to the ordinal consistency which combines two main parts. First, a process is proposed which requires a smaller number of comparisons from a decision maker to compare all objects. Second, a principle of double check for indirect comparisons is introduced for the verification purposes. In case of ordinal inconsistency a previously developed system ORCON may be used to resolve inconsistency in a dialogue with a decision maker. The efficiency of the process is evaluated through a computer modelling and data from published research.

Keywords: ordinal consistency; cycle; transitivity; pairwise comparisons; verbal decision analysis; VDA; MCDM; MCDA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMDM.2020.108232

International Journal of Management and Decision Making, 2020 Vol.19 No.2, pp.133 - 156

Received: 06 Nov 2019
Accepted: 10 Jan 2020
Published online: 06 Jul 2020 *

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