Consensus reaching with dynamic expert credibility under Dempster-Shafer theory

Abstract

Consensus building is crucial in multi-criteria group decision making (MCGDM) because a consensual decision outcome is beneficial for implementing the result. However, expert credibility and its dynamic variation are rarely considered in the consensus reaching process (CRP) for MCGDM problems. In reality, experts are not completely reliable, and their credibility changes dynamically during the CRP. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel CRP method based on dynamic expert credibility for GDM under Dempster-Shafer theory (DST). First, expert credibility is defined by measuring the extrinsic discrepancy and intrinsic ambiguity of decision information to quantify experts’ abilities to provide high-quality evaluations. Then, a novel consensus measure is proposed based on the inverse-square law to check whether the current consensus level satisfies the designated threshold. If not, a new feedback mechanism considering dynamic expert credibility is activated to promote group consensus. Furthermore, the attribute weights are comprehensively determined from both objective and subjective perspectives. Finally, an illustrative example and comparative analysis are presented to validate the proposed method.