A New Application for the Goal Programming—The Target Decision Rule for Uncertain Problems

Abstract

The goal programming (GP) is a well-known approach applied to multi-criteria decision making (M-DM). It has been used in many domains and the literature offers diverse extensions of this procedure. On the other hand, so far, some evident analogies between M-DM under certainty and scenario-based one-criterion decision making under uncertainty (1-DMU) have not been revealed in the literature. These similarities give the possibility to adjust the goal programming to an entirely new domain. The purpose of the paper is to create a novel method for uncertain problems on the basis of the GP ideas. In order to achieve this aim we carefully examine the analogies occurring between the structures of both issues (M-DM and 1-DMU). We also analyze some differences resulting from a different interpretation of the data. By analogy to the goal programming, four hybrids for 1-DMU are formulated. They differ from each other in terms of the type of the decision maker considered (pessimist, optimist, moderate). The new decision rule may be helpful when solving uncertain problems since it is especially designed for neutral criteria, which are not taken into account in existing procedures developed for 1-DMU.