A decentralized feedback mechanism with compromise behavior for large-scale group consensus reaching process with application in smart logistics supplier selection

This paper proposes a decentralized feedback mechanism to help large-scale decision makers (DMs) reach consensus considering the limited compromise behavior of subgroups. First, a novel decentralized opinion interaction mechanism is designed to identify the most inconsistent subgroups pair in the group and make them interact with each other. Then it is different from the centralized interaction mechanism, which adopts the aggregation of the opinions of other subgroups. The former is suitable for situations with low initial consensus level while the later is for high consensus level. Secondly, the compromise behavior of subgroups in the feedback process is explored, and then the concept of ‘compromise threshold’ (CT) is defined to analyze the limited compromise behavior of subgroups. Finally, an illustrative example regarding the smart logistics supplier selection (SLEC) is described to demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed mechanism.