Entrepreneurial fuzzy group decision-making under complex environments

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Merigó, José M. | Peris-Ortiz, Marta | Palacios-Marqués, Daniel

Affiliations: Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK | Deparment of Business Organization, Universitat Politècnica de València, València, Spain

Note: [] Corresponding author. José M. Merigó, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Booth Street West, M15 6PB Manchester, UK. E-mail: jose.merigolindahl@mbs.ac.uk

Abstract: A new framework for the entrepreneurial group decision support systems is presented when the information is uncertain but can be assessed with fuzzy numbers. The paper develops a new aggregation operator that uses the weighted average and the ordered weighted averaging operator in the same formulation considering the importance of each concept in the analysis. The use of order inducing variables in the reordering step of the aggregation process allows dealing with complex attitudinal characters that may include variables such as time pressure and psychological factors. The applicability of this new approach in decision-making problems is also studied. It offers the possibility of developing a wide range of methods including a unified framework for decision-making under risk and uncertainty and decision processes ex-ante and ex-post. A fuzzy multi-person decision making approach under risk and uncertainty ex-ante is developed and implemented in an entrepreneurial decision-making problem concerning an entrepreneur who wants to create a new company and is looking for the most appropriate market.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial group decision making, fuzzy numbers, uncertainty, aggregation operators

DOI: 10.3233/IFS-131048

Journal: Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 901-912, 2014