Aggregating preference rankings: An AHP-based approach

The problem considered here involves the selection of an alternative by a group of decision makers in a context that involves the aggregating of votes from a preferential ballot. A popular approach for solving such problems is the well-known weighting problem formulation. However, with such a formulation two issues become of critical importance: (a) the weights should reflect the decision-making group's belief on the importance of each rank position and (b) the weights should accord each alternative a fair (if not its best) assessment. Many researchers have studied this problem and proposed various solution strategies. None of these strategies, however, appears to have adequately addressed both issues. The objective of this research is to develop a group decision-making model that solves the problem in a manner that adequately addresses the two critical issues identified, as well as allows for sensitivity analysis and is fairly robust with respect to the various paradoxes identified in voting systems.