As Editor-in-Chief of Decision Analysis, I am delighted to announce the Clemen-Kleinmuntz Decision Analysis Best Paper Award for the best paper in the journal in 2021, plus a runner-up. Funding for the winning paper is provided by an endowment established by the Kleinmuntz Family Foundation.
2021 Winner
Friction and Decision Rules in Portfolio Decision Analysis
Gary J. Summers
Vol. 18, No. 2, Jun 2021
https://doi.org/10.1287/deca.2020.0421
The practice of decision analysis typically involves identifying performance objectives and managerial preferences, quantifying uncertainties, and then using them as inputs to assess alternatives. An exhaustive theory-driven literature in decision analysis provides foundations for this practice, assuming that objectives, preferences, and uncertainties are well understood and available to quantify. The award-winning article by Summers highlights that this quantification may not be accurate in practice, leading to "friction" in decision-analysis models. This friction can systematically lead to a loss in decision quality. The article provides examples from multiple domains, and new analysis to illustrate this friction. As such, the article underscores the importance of calibrating the inputs to decision-analysis models. It promises to be a springboard for future research on understanding the causes of friction in decision-analysis models, its implications, and mitigation methods.
2021 Finalist
Preference–Approval Structures in Group Decision Making: Axiomatic Distance and Aggregation
Vol. 18, No. 4, December 2021
https://doi.org/10.1287/deca.2021.0430
While decision analysis commonly focuses on decision making by an individual or a group acting as an individual, the paper by Dong et al. (2021) focuses on group decision making. It combines two popular approaches for aggregating individual preferences, ranked voting and approval voting, which have compensating strengths and weaknesses: Ranked voting leverages the preference ranking central to the decision-analysis approach, but is subject to strategic manipulation (where individuals misrepresent their preferences). Approval voting is immune to strategic manipulation, but does not provide the complete ranking required by decision analysis. The article shows that combining them leads to superior performance. Future empirical research and practice is likely to significantly benefit from the rigorous foundational treatment provided by this article.
Many thanks to the 2021 Award Co-Chairs:
Saurabh Bansal and Robert Bordley
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Vicki Bier
Professor Emerita
University of Wisconsin
Madison WI
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