Article ID: | iaor20041681 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 54 |
Issue: | 7 |
Start Page Number: | 758 |
End Page Number: | 768 |
Publication Date: | Jul 2003 |
Journal: | Journal of the Operational Research Society |
Authors: | Leung L.C., Hui Y.V., Zheng M. |
Keywords: | analytic hierarchy process |
Analytic network process (ANP) addresses multi-attribute decision-making where attributes exhibit dependencies. A principal characteristic of such problems is that pairwise comparisons are needed for attributes that have interdependencies. We propose that before such comparison matrices are used—in addition to a test that assesses the consistency of a pairwise comparison matrix—a test must also be conducted to assess ‘consistency’ across interdependent matrices. We call such a cross-matrix consistency test a compatibility test. In this paper, we design a compatibility test for interdependent matrices between two clusters of attributes. We motivate our exposition by addressing compatibility in Sinarchy, a special form of ANP where interdependency exists between the last and next-to-last level. The developed compatibility test is applicable to any pair of interdependent matrices that are a part of an ANP.