THE SECRETARY PROBLEM REVISITED - THE GROUP DECISION-MAKING PERSPECTIVE

We consider a decision situation where there is an initial set of alte rnatives that may be augmented, a variant of the problem known in the literature as the ''secretary problem''. We focus the discussion on th e special case of group decision-making, where a group or committee is charged with the responsibility of negotiating the decision. We inves tigate situations of explicitly stated (multiple) criteria and the sim pler situation of no such stated criteria. The former case includes th e congenial, the mixed, and the uncongenial cases, where the individua ls agree on the direction of all, some, or none of the criteria, respe ctively. We offer a framework within which a group of individuals can be supported in such a decision process. In the case of explicit crite ria, we provide the decision-makers with probability information of th e likelihood of finding more preferred alternatives provided the initi al set of alternatives is expanded. The framework is tested using a si mulated real-world choice situation.