Several approaches exist to illuminate and clarify public values relevant for making public policy decisions. These include surveys, indirect and direct value elicitation, focus groups and public involvement. This paper describes a new approach, called the public value forum, which combines...

Given a group composed of N individuals and given that each has rated all of the alternatives using a cardinal utility function, the problem is to aggregate these to obtain a group cardinal utility function for evaluating each alternative. The cardinal utilities indicate the strength of...

This paper addresses the problem of constructing a group cardinal social welfare function whose arguments are the individual utility functions of group members. Representation theorems are given which show that the social welfare function is restricted to special forms if certain "reasonable"...

Internet commerce has the potential to offer customers a better deal compared to purchases by conventional methods in many situations. To make this potential a reality, businesses must focus on the values of their customers. We interviewed over one-hundred individuals about all the pros and cons...

Objectives have long been considered a basis for sound decision making. This research examines the ability of decision makers to generate self-relevant objectives for consequential decisions. In three empirical studies, participants consistently omitted nearly half of the objectives that they...

A procedure is presented to evaluate the appropriateness of alternative methodologies for analyzing a specified problem. This procedure is illustrated by identifying desirable characteristics of nuclear power plant site selection methodologies and evaluating the adequacy of methodologies that...

In this paper we develop a conceptual framework and model for valuing risks to an individual's health and life and to support decision making about investments in health, quality of life, and safety. Our treatment of health risks in the model builds on the popular quality-adjusted-life-year...

The modeling of many complex phenomena necessarily relies on numerous interrelated judgments. This paper illustrates an application of the concepts of multiattribute utility assessment, based on the professional judgments of one physician, to scale the trauma severity of injuries to individuals....

Choices that require multiple stakeholders to balance conflicting objectives are among today's most controversial decisions. Although many techniques exist for helping decision makers to select among projects, little attention has been given to processes for identifying improved alternatives...

With many large-scale projects, such as power plants, some members of the public will necessarily incur a risk. Public fatalities may result from either normal operations (e.g., via pollution) or accidents. Often in such cases, a small group of the public incur the risks, whereas a different...