Behavioural Aspects

Ever since the first publications of decision theory based on maximizing utility, there have also been researchers criticizing the theory. There have been arguments whether people actually do maximize utility in decision making, or are they simply aiming at satisfactory decisions. Similarly, there have been arguments concerning whether people just follow heuristic rules in their decision making, or do they behave rationally (e.g. Janis and Mann 1977; March 1994).

Furthermore, the decision makers having modern planning tools available have not always found them useful in real problems (Kasanen et al. 2000). This may partly be due to problems with interpretation of the results from MCDS. Partly the problem may be that not enough emphasis has been put in decision aid on important aspects such as structuring the problem and creating choice alternatives. Partly the problem may be the decision cost: making calculations and using planning procedures costs money, time and energy (Pingle and Day 1996). Even when planning procedures produce better decisions, the improvement also has to be large enough to cover this cost in order to make planning calculations worthwhile.