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Forum"],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>Research has shown that decision-makers omit a significant number of their objectives when making a decision. This study examines the consequences of incomplete objectives on decision\u00a0making, i.e., how does omitting objectives affect identifying the most promising alternative? We investigate this question using a dataset of 945 observed decisions. These decisions were developed by students using the decision-skills and training tool entscheidungsnavi.com. The tool guides students in a step-by-step process based on value-focused thinking, multi-attribute utility theory, and debiasing methods. Results show that omitting objectives significantly reduces the chances of identifying the most promising alternative. Hence, neglecting only 20% of the objectives is sufficient to mislead more than one in four decisions. We have found three factors that influence this risk of misidentifying the most promising alternative: (1) the weight of the omitted objectives; (2) the consensus on the best alternative across all objectives; and (3) the consensus on the ranking of all alternatives across all objectives.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1007\/s43069-024-00371-3","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,10,2]],"date-time":"2024-10-02T12:02:13Z","timestamp":1727870533000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Incomplete Objectives in Decision\u00a0Making: How Omitting Objectives Affects Identifying the Most Promising Alternative"],"prefix":"10.1007","volume":"5","author":[{"given":"Sara J. M.","family":"Abdeen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3958-0631","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Florian","family":"Methling","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"R\u00fcdiger","family":"von Nitzsch","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,10,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"371_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Bond SD, Carlson KA, Keeney RL\u00a0(2010) Improving the generation of decision objectives. Decision Anal 7.\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1287\/deca.1100.0172","DOI":"10.1287\/deca.1100.0172"},{"key":"371_CR2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Barron FH\u00a0(1987) Influence of missing attributes on selecting a best multi attributed alternative. 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