Determining the utility in management by using multi-criteria decision support tools: a review

Abstract

The multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) utility-determining techniques are considered to be new development techniques that have been recently presented, extended and used by some scholars. In the current work, an attempt is made to present a systematic review of methodologies and applications of the MCDM utility-determining techniques discussed in recent years. The researchers reviewed 86 papers, describing the use of the MCDM utility-determining techniques, which were published in the period 2004–2015 in more than 42 scientific journals. They mainly refer to the area of management and are extracted from online databases, such as Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar. According to the classification used by the researchers, the papers were grouped based on the five main MCDM utility-determining techniques, including stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA), the weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS), the additive ratio assessment (ARAS), the method of complex proportional assessment (COPRAS), multi-objective optimisation by ratio analysis (MOORA) and MULTIMOORA (MOORA plus a full multiplicative form). Furthermore, the papers were categorised taking into account their authors, publication date, journal name, the technique and method used, research objectives, research gap and problem, solution and modelling and, finally, the results and findings. The results of this study show that, in 2013, scholars published more papers on the MCDM utility-determining techniques than in other years. It is also worth noting that a group of COPRAS methods (COPRAS-Grey and COPRAS-Fuzzy) was ranked number one among the methods used in this area. With regard to journals, the Journal of Civil Engineering and Management was ranked first in the list of journals, which contributed to this review.