An new framework for describing the decision behaviour of large groups

Many occurrences in real-life result from decisions taken by a very large number of decision makers. Furthermore, these decisions often depend on the optimisation of several conflicting criteria. The decision or behaviour of every microscopic entity results finally in a global macroscopic behaviour of the whole group of decision makers. In such context, the use of classical decision support tools, such as multicriteria based group decision support systems, to model these macroscopic phenomena is not appropriate. In order to tackle this type of problems, we introduce a tool based on Markov chains to model and manage these large group decisions. Finally, the method results in a statistical distribution of decisions, allowing us to study the impact of policy measures on the global group behaviour. This is illustrated by means of a simple example stemming from the telecommunication sector.