The ordinal dominance theory as applied to the most attractive retail cities of the Benelux area

Abstract

An important estate broker for retail in Europe has performed statistical research on retail business in cities in the Benelux area (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg). The broker choose five characteristics to rate 30 Benelux cities on their retail business. However, summing these ranks is not allowed as they do not represent cardinal numbers. Hence, calculating the medians and quartiles of this ordinal number series signifies a possible alternative. The disadvantages of this approach are: many ex aequos and to be operational at least six terms are needed, whereas only five characteristics are present here. Instead, an Ordinal Dominance Theory was developed that only needs at least three terms. Finally, a SWOT-analysis was made concerning retail business for the main Belgian cities, Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent.