Managing Resources Based on Influential Indicators for Sustainable Economic Development: A Case Study in Serbia

Abstract

The balance between resource consumption and the ability of natural systems to meet the needs of future generations emerges as a prerequisite of sustainability. Sustainability means aligning economic growth and development with the interest of the environment and social development. Decision-making is a significant responsibility in an environment and the business world because decisions affect the ecology and business performance. It is necessary to adopt new approaches in decision-making to find an appropriate method for assessing and setting priority goals. Various methods for multi-criteria decision-making have been developed, including the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The paper deals with the management of natural and human resources for the sustainable economic development of Serbia by selecting influential factors, relying on a multi-criteria decision-making framework. Appropriate methods have been applied: AHP and several fuzzy AHP (FAHP) approaches. These methods’ application enables the analysis of results from different aspects of expert opinion. Through a case study, this paper investigates the AHP method from several facets in which the identification of decision criteria is based on the perception of experts of different profiles. The findings of this research can be a guideline for decision-makers in resource management to enhance sustainable economic development. The case study confirms that the stability of the business environment and business sectors is the most influential indicator in all scenarios.