The Analytic Hierarchy Process and the Theory of Measurement
Michele Bernasconi, Christine Choirat, Raffaello Seri
Management Science · 2010 · Volume 56 · Issue 4
Abstract
The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a decision-making procedure widely used in management for establishing priorities in multicriteria decision problems. Underlying the AHP is the theory of ratio-scale measures developed in psychophysics since the middle of the last century. It is, however, well known that classical ratio-scaling approaches have several problems. We reconsider the AHP in the light of the modern theory of measurement based on the so-called separable representations recently axiomatized in mathematical psychology. We provide various theoretical and empirical results on the extent to which the AHP can be considered a reliable decision-making procedure in terms of the modern theory of subjective measurement.
Keywords
ratio scales, subjective weighting, decision making
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