Group Decision-Making Based on Artificial Intelligence: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Decisions concerning crucial and complicated problems are seldom made by a single person. Instead, they require the cooperation of a group of experts in which each participant has their own individual opinions, motivations, background, and interests regarding the existing alternatives. In the last 30 years, much research has been undertaken to provide automated assistance to reach a consensual solution supported by most of the group members. Artificial intelligence techniques are commonly applied to tackle critical group decision-making difficulties. For instance, experts’ preferences are often vague and imprecise; hence, their opinions are combined using fuzzy linguistic approaches. This paper reports a bibliometric analysis of the ample literature published in this regard. In particular, our analysis: (i) shows the impact and upswing publication trend on this topic; (ii) identifies the most productive authors, institutions, and countries; (iii) discusses authors’ and journals’ productivity patterns; and (iv) recognizes the most relevant research topics and how the interest on them has evolved over the years.