Decision Making with the Analytic Network Process : Economic, Political, Social and Technological Applications with Benefits, Opportunities, Costs and Risks

The Analytic Network Process (ANP) developed by Thomas Saaty in his work on multicriteria decision making applies network structures with dependence and feedback to complex decision making. This book is a selection of applications of ANP to economic, social and political decisions, and also to technological design. The chapters comprise contributions of scholars, consultants and people concerned about the outcome of certain important decisions who applied the Analytic Network Process to determine the best outcome for each decision from among several potential outcomes. The ANP is a methodological tool used to organize knowledge and thinking, elicit judgments registered in both in memory and in feelings, quantify the judgments and derive priorities from them, and finally synthesize these diverse priorities into a single mathematically and logically justifiable overall outcome. In deriving this outcome, the ANP also allows for the representation of diverse opinions in the midst of discussion and debate.