Journal of Modelling in Management

Graphical interpretation of outranking principles: Avoiding misinterpretation

results from ELECTRE I
Helder Gomes Costa
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Helder Gomes Costa , (2016),"Graphical interpretation of outranking principles", Journal of Modelling
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JM2
11,1
Graphical interpretation of
outranking principles
Avoiding misinterpretation results from
26 ELECTRE I
Helder Gomes Costa
Received 10 August 2013
Revised 12 October 2013 Production Engineering Department, Fluminense Federal University,
11 January 2014 Niteroi, Brazil
17 May 2014
Accepted 28 May 2014
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Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to use a graphical approach to highlight the differences between
outranking and preference relationships. The outranking principle is based on a structure of
non-dominance, which differs from the usual structures of preferences.
Design/methodology/approach – To reach the objective, the paper makes a deep analysis of
outranking and preference relationships and uses graphical representation to highlight the differences
between these two concepts. Graphical interpretation is also used to support the results form ELECTRE
I and to highlight misinterpretation of results, such as rank reversal in ELECTRE I.
Findings – The results show that the assumption of rank reversal while using ELECTRE I is a
mistake.
Originality/value – It was not found in literature a previous work paper that demonstrates a result
like this one.
Keywords MCDA, Multicriteria, Decision analysis, Outranking
Paper type Conceptual paper

1. Introduction
Classical texts such as Arrow (1963), Roy (1968), Fishburn (1970), Saaty (1980),
Changkong and Haimes (1983), Zeleny (1982) and Roy and Boyssou (1985) consider that
decision is surrounded by a complex environment in which multiple viewpoints should
be taken into account. These texts provide the basis of the discipline multicriteria
decision aid (MDCA).
MCDA has been deployed by several methods, most of them based on establishing
relationships between pairs of alternatives. There are, basically, two types of relationships
that support MCDA approaches: preference relations and non-dominance relations. These
relationships are based on the following statements:
• S1 (preference): A decision-maker (DM) prefers an alterative a instead of another
one b, if and only if a is better than b.

Journal of Modelling in
Management
Vol. 11 No. 1, 2016
pp. 26-42
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1746-5664
DOI 10.1108/JM2-08-2013-0037
The author would like to acknowledge the National Council of Technological and Scientific
Development (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Brazil) and thank
Tais Fernandes Costa for the pictures in Figures 1 and 16. The author would also like to thank the
reviewers of the paper, the Editorial Board of JM2 and those who supported the publication
process, especially Mrs Wendy Weaver and Ms Louise Robb. The contributions from this team
have improved the paper quality.
 • S2 (non-dominance): On the other hand, a DM considers that an alternative a is Interpretation
non-dominated by another one b, if and only if a is not worse than b. of outranking
Recognizing the differences in these approaches could improve the understanding and principles
interpretation of the results that come from modeling decision problems in an MCDA
basis.
Another recurrent problem is the misinterpretation of the results in ELECTRE I (Roy,
1968), realizing the wrong idea that all alternatives in the non-dominated (N) set of
27
alternatives are better than all alternatives in the dominated (D) set.
So, the paper aims to present a graphical and visual interpretation of preference and
non-dominance relationships and to explore the interpretation of the result from
ELECTRE I, focusing on the elucidation of intransitivity that should occur in an
outranking graph.
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2. Initial notations and definitions

To describe the preference and non-dominance and functions, some initial assumptions
are done. So, as first reported in Roy (1968):
• Let A ⫽ {a, b, c, …, m} be a set of alternatives not mutually exclusive, so that one
could choose one or more options from A.
• Let F ⫽ {C1, C2, C3, …, Ck …, Cn} be a family or set of n independent criteria that
one could take into account while evaluating the alternatives in A.
• Let g(a) ⫽ {g1(a), g2(a), g3(a), …, gk(a), …, gn(a)} be a performance vector that
records the performance or grade assigned to an alternative a under the set of
criteria F.

Based on the vectors of performances of the alternatives in A, one could realize a matrix
of performances G in such way that:

共 兲
g1(a), g2(a), g3(a), . . . , gk(a), . . . , gn(a)
g1(b), g2(b), g3(b), . . . , gk(b), . . . , gn(b)
G⫽ (1)
g1(c), g2(c), g3(c), . . . , gk(c), . . . , gn(c)
g1(m), g2(m), g3(m), . . . , gk(m), . . . , gn(m)

3. Structure of preferences
To present the definition about preference relationships, this section assumes the
categorization of criteria reported in Vincke (1989).

3.1 True-criterion
In the ambit of a true-criterion, the following relationships of preferences are built:

Indifference (I): aIjb ⇔ gj(a) ⫽ gj(b) (2a)

Strict preference (P): aPjb ⇔ gj(a) ⬎ gj(b) (2b)

Figure 1 shows the regions of indifference and preference regarding two generic
alternatives a e b and a generic criteria cj. Observe that these relations need to refer to the
 JM2 specific criterion cj, as aPjb does not require that aPkb. So, it is necessary to put the index
11,1 that refers to the criterion while representing the relations of preference.
Based on Figure 1 and on statements S1 and S2, it is possible to construct both a
preference function (pj(a,b)) and a concordance or non-dominance function (cj(a,b)). So:

28
兵pj(a, b) ⫽ 1, iff gj(a) ⬎ gj(b)
pj(a, b) ⫽ 0, otherwise
(3a)

and

兵 cj(a, b) ⫽ 1, iff gj(a) ⬎ gj(b)

cj(a, b) ⫽ 0, otherwise
(3b)
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In equation (3b), the symbol cj(a,b) refers to the concordance degree with the assertive
that “a is not worse than b” or that “a is non-dominated by b”.
Figures 2 and 3 show, respectively, the preference function pj(a,b) and the
concordance function cj(a,b) for a true-criterion. As one can see, in the case of a
true-criterion, the differences between these functions are minimal.

3.2 Semi-criterion
While working with a semi-criterion, it is possible to consider that the difference
between the performances of two alternatives does not mean, as a matter of fact, a
difference under the DM viewpoint. So the following relations can be built:

Indifference (I): aIjb ⇔ ⱍ gj(a) ⫺ gj(b) ⱍ ⱕ qj (4a)

Strict preference (P): aPjb ⇔ gj(a) ⬎ gj(b) ⫹ qj (4b)

Figure 4 shows the regions of indifference and preference regarding two generic
alternatives a e b and a generic criteria cj. As one can see in this figure, there is a “region
of indifference”, instead of a “point of indifference” that occurs in the true-criterion case,
which highlights the recognizing of uncertainty on a semi-criterion approach.

Figure 1.
Regions of preference
for a true-criterion
 Interpretation
of outranking
principles

29

Figure 2.
Function of
preference for a
true-criterion
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Figure 3.
Function of
non-dominance for a
true-criterion

Figure 4.
Regions of preference
for a semi-criterion

Based on this figure and on the assumptions S1 and S2, the following equations are
formulated to the calculus of preference (pj) and concordance (cj) functions:

兵pj(a, b) ⫽ 1, iff gj(a) ⬎ gj(b) ⫹ qj

pj(a, b) ⫽ 0, otherwise
(5a)

and

兵 cj(a, b) ⫽ 1, iff gj(a) ⬎ gj(b) ⫺ qj

cj(a, b) ⫽ 0, otherwise
(5b)
 JM2 Comparing equations (5a and 5b), it claims attention of the presence of signal “plus” on
11,1 the right side of equation (5a) against the signal “minus” that appears on the right side
of equation (5b). As a matter of fact:
• Equation (5a) assumes that there is preference of a over b if, and only if, a is better
than b, which agrees with the statement S1.
30 • Equation (5b) translates the sense that if a is not worse than b. That is, a is
non-dominated by b, which agrees with the statement S2, which refers to
non-dominance relations.

Figure 5 shows the behavior of the preference function. As one can observe, the
preference function has value equal to 1.0 only in the region where really aPjb. So, it is
equal to 0 in all the regions where aIjb or bPja.
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On the other hand, Figure 6 shows the behavior of non-dominance function.

Analyzing this figure, one should conclude that the concordance with the statement that
a is not worse than b is equal to 0 in the region where bPja, but it is 1.0 in the union of the
regions where aPjb or aIjb – that is: in the region where a is not worse than b, which
agrees with statement S2.
The visualization of the functions together the regions of preference and indifference
makes easy the understanding of the conceptual difference between outranking
no-dominance structures (adopted in ELECTRE family of multicriteria methods) and
the other traditional structures of preferences.
It is interesting to note that an alternative a could be considered not worse than other
one b, even if its performance is lower than the performance of b. This is the essence of
outranking MCDA approaches.

Figure 5.
Preference relations
for a semi-criterion

Figure 6.
Non-dominance
relations for a
semi-criterion
 3.3 Pseudo-criterion Interpretation
Besides the difficulty of discerning and establishing differences while comparing of outranking
alternatives, the DM may also hesitate to express his preferences about the alternatives
even when they perceive them as different. Pseudo-criterion deals with such kind of
principles
situations, by modeling the relationships of preference as follows:

Indifference (I): 31
(6a)
aIjb ⇔ ⱍ gj(a) ⫺ gj(b) ⱍ ⱕ qj

Strict preference (P):

(6b)
aPjb ⇔ gj(a) ⬎ gj(b) ⫹ pj

Weak preference (Q):

(6c)
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aQjb ⇔ gj(b) ⫹ qj ⬍ gj(a) ⱕ gj(b) ⫹ pj

Where pj denotes the limit of preference, in such way that aPjb if and only if a has a
performance much higher than b, under the criterion cj viewpoint.
Figure 7 shows the regions of indifference (Ij), weak preference (Qj) and strong or
strict preferences (Pj), regarding two generic alternatives a e b and a generic criteria cj.
Five regions can be observed in this figure: bPja, bQja, aIjb, aQjb and aPjb.
Analyzing Figure 7 under the concepts of preference and non-dominance declared in
assumptions S1 and S2, the following equations could be formulated:

兵 pj(a, b) ⫽ 1, iff gj(a) ⬎ gj(b) ⫹ pj

pj(a, b) ⫽ 0, iff gj(a) ⱕ gj(b) ⫹ qj
pj(a, b) ␧ (0, 1), iff gj(b) ⫹ qj ⱕ gj(a) ⱕ gj(b) ⫹ pj
(7a)

and

兵 cj(a, b) ⫽ 1, iff gj(a) ⬎ gj(b) ⫹ qj

cj(a, b) ⫽ 0, iff gj(a) ⱕ gj(b) ⫹ pj
cj(a, b) ␧ (0, 1), iff gj(b) ⫹ pj ⱕ gj(a) ⱕ gj(b) ⫺ qj
(7b)

Figure 8 shows the behavior of both preference and concordance functions spread over
the preference regions. As one can see, the non-dominance (cj(a,b)) function is equal to 1.0
in regions where aIjb, aQjb or aPjb. That is, in the regions where a is not worse than b. In

Figure 7.
Regions of preference
for a pseudo-criterion
 JM2 the region bQja, a is slightly dominated by b, so the 0 ⬍ cj(a,b) ⬍ 1. Another conclusion
11,1 is that in the region where bPja, there is no doubt that a is dominated by b, so the
concordance with affirmation that a is non-dominated by b cj(a,b) is equal to zero.
The comparison of behavior of the preference and concordance functions shows a
huge difference in the principles that govern these two approaches.
It is interesting to notice that the behavior of both preference and concordance
32 functions are presented as linear functions in the transition zone. For concordance, it
agrees with the formulation reported in such ELECTRE methods. On the other hand,
there are other MCDA methods, such as PROMETHE family of methods, or even in
fuzzy functions of preference, that makes possibly the use of non-linear functions for
representing the preference functions.

4. ELECTRE family of methods: criteria types and problematic

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addressed
Most MCDA methods adopt preference approaches to model relations between
alternatives. The exception is the ELECTRE family of methods that applies a
non-dominance approach. As this paper has the objective of exploring the graphical
interpretation of the ELECTRE I outranking approach, at this point of the text, it follows
a synthetic discussion about ELECTRE family of MCDA methods as a whole.
ELECTRE I (Roy, 1968) and ELECTRE II (Roy and Bertier, 1971) use a true-criteria
approach. ELECTRE I is used to identify a set of alternatives that are non-dominated,
being useful for selecting a set of alternatives, whereas ELECTRE II was projected to
rank alternatives. The other ELECTRE methods take the use of the concept of
pseudo-criterion to model decision problems.
ELECTRE III (Roy, 1978) and ELECTRE IV (Roy and Bertier, 1971) address ranking
alternatives. The main difference between them is that ELECTRE IV deals with
situations where the criteria weights are not known.
ELECTRE IS (Roy and Skalka, 1985), as ELECTRE I, addresses selecting a
non-dominated set of alternatives. The main difference is that it incorporates a
pseudo-criteria approach, instead of using a true-criteria approach.
ELECTRE TRI (Yu, 1992) and (Mousseau et al., 2000) deals with the sorting problem,
in which the alternatives are assigned to categories that have priority relationship
among them. This method was recently extended by ELECTRE TRI-C (Almeida-Dias
et al., 2010) and ELECTRE TRI-nC (Almeida-Dias et al., 2012), which have reduced the
subjectivity while defining references for the categories.

Figure 8.
Preference and
concordance
relations for a pseudo
criterion
 Table I shows a compilation that associates ELECTRE methods, type of criteria and the Interpretation
target of the modeling. of outranking
5. The ELECTRE I method
principles
The ELECTRE I algorithm is based on two steps: building outranking relations among
pairs of alternatives and exploiting these relations to obtain a partition of the set A of
alternatives into two subsets– a non-dominated subset (N) and a dominated subset (D). 33
5.1 Outranking relations
The concordance functions shown in Section 2 address each criterion individually. In
ELECTRE I, the overall outranking relation between the two alternatives is based on an
overall concordance index C(a,b) that takes into account the evaluation of the
alternatives under the criteria set as a whole. Another metric in ELECTRE I is the
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discordance index D(a,b) that measures the discordance with the assertive that a is not
worse than b, So that:

兵
m
C(a, b) ⫽
1
兺 w where
w ∀j:gi(a)ⱖgij(b)
W⫽ 兺w
j⫽1
j (8)

兵 D(a, b) ⫽ max 关 gj(b) ⫺ gj(a)

␦j
;0 兴 where ␦j ⫽ gj(X) ⫺ gj(Y) (9)

In these equations, wj is the degree of importance or the weight of criterion cj; and X and
Y are, respectively, the alternative that has the best and the worse performance for the
same criteria j.
As reported in Roy (1968), as a rule, an alternative a outranks another one b (aSb), if
and only if the following two conditions are satisfied:
(1) The concordance C(a,b) with the assertive “a is not worse than b” is greater than
or equal to a minimum concordance cut-level ĉ : C(a,b) ⱖ ĉ.
(2) The rejection or discordance D(a,b) with this assertive is minor than a maximum
concordance cut-level d̂ : C(a,b) ⱖ d̂.

If occurs the case that neither a outranks b nor b outranks a, then there is no outranking
relationship between a and b. So, one can say that these alternatives are incomparable,
which is denoted by aSb or bRa.

Method True-criteria Pseudo-criteria Type of problem

ELECTRE I X Choice of a set of alternatives

ELECTRE II X Ranking of alternatives
ELECTRE III X Ranking of alternatives
ELECTRE IV X Ranking of alternatives, when the Table I.
weights of criteria are not known ELECTRE family of
ELECTRE IS X Choice of a set of alternatives methods and the
ELECTRE TRI, X Sorting alternatives into categories problematic they are
TRI-C and TRI-nC addressed
 JM2 Figure 9 shows a sketch that aims to illustrate these conditions. In this sketch, the
11,1 spaceship, named as AB, has to successfully pass by two tests, to get the distinction that
aSb:
(1) In the first test, the spaceship AB must fly over a ĉ barrier.
(2) In the second test, AB must fly under the second barrier d̂ .
34
If the spaceship AB crashes against one of these barriers, it cannot get the distinction
aSb. Otherwise, one can say that aSb.

5.2 Finding the set of non-dominated alternatives

Based on the outranking relationships between each pair of alternatives, ELECTRE I
builds a outranking directed graph. The rules for building this graph are as follows:
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• The alternatives are in the nodes.

• An arrow from a node to another one means an outranking relation. So, if a
outranks b (aSb), there is an arrow from a to b.
• If a is not comparable to b (aRb), there is no arrow between a and b in the
outranking graph.

Figure 10 shows an example of an outranking graph. Based on this graph, one can notice
that aSb, aSc, cSb, dSc, cSb, aRd and bRd.
After the graph has been constructed, ELECTRE I builds a partition of the set A of
alternatives, which is divided into two subsets: a non-dominated subset (N) and a
dominate subset (D). The construction of the partition is driven by the following rules:
R.1. There is no outranking relationship among any alternatives in N.
R.2. All the alternatives in D are outranked by, at least, one alternative in N.
It is interesting to highlight that the results from ELECTRE I implies the set N outranks
the subset D, which does not imply that all alternatives in N outrank all alternatives in
D. So, ELECTRE I results in a relation of outranking between sets N and D, instead of
relationship among alternatives individually, that could indicate the position of the
alternative in a ranking.

Figure 9.
Sketch
representation of the
relationship aSb

A C D

Figure 10.
Example of an
outranking graph B
 6. Numerical examples Interpretation
To illustrate the value of the discussions and reflections shown in previous sections, of outranking
some examples are presented as follow. In all of these examples, without loss of
generality, two assumptions are done: as greater is the value (gj) assigned to an
principles
alternative under a criteria, better is the alternative’s performance; the weight of the
criteria are all the same. Another decision was to not use the discordance index, as it
works like a veto, and we understand that any veto should occur before the definition of 35
the alternatives in the A. That is, if an alternative is in A, it was feasible, and as a
consequence of this fact, veto should not be applied to it. This assumption does not cause
loss of generality.

6.1 Numerical Example 1

Consider a hypothetical situation in which a DM should choose aN employee to
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represent its company in a project negotiation. In this situation, it is desirable that the
employee has the best skill in five criteria: mechanics, finance, negotiation,
anthropology and computation. Their DM should choose one employee from a set
composed by five options. Table II shows the performance of each alternative under
each criterion.
Applying equation (8) to the data shown in Table II, one obtains the values of the
concordance index, which are shown in Table III.
As one can see in Table I, George is a Pareto optimal, as it has the best performance
under all the criteria. As a Pareto optimal, there is a concordance equal to 1.0 (see
Table II) that George outranks all the other alternatives in A. Assuming a concordance
cut-level ĉ equal to 1.0, it results in the outranking graph shown in Figure 11.
Applying the rules R.1 and R.2 (see Section 5.2) to the this graph, it results in the
following partition:
N ⫽ {George}.
D ⫽ {John, Mike, Bob, Paul}.

Criteria
Alternatives Mechanics Finance Negotiation Anthropology Computation

John 4 4 4 3 1
Mike 1 1 2 4 3
Bob 3 2 2 2 2 Table II.
Paul 2 3 1 1 4 Data for numerical
George 5 5 5 5 5 Example 1

Alternative John Mike Bob Paul George

John 1 0.6 0.8 0.8 0

Mike 0.4 1 0.6 0.4 0
Bob 0.2 0.6 1 0.6 0 Table III.
Paul 0.2 0.6 0.4 1 0 Concordance matrix
George 1 1 1 1 1 for Example 1
 JM2 This occurs because in all the criteria, George has a skill that outranks all the other
11,1 alternatives’ skills. It means that if the DM chooses George, the inclusion of any of the
other alternatives would not raise the results already hit by its choice (George) in any
criterion. Remember that an initial hypothesis of ELECTRE methods is that there is no
synergy or additive effect among the alternatives.

36
6.2 Numerical example 2
In this second hypothetical decision situation, a DM should choose an employee to
represent its company in a project negotiation that will occur for a long period in China.
In this situation, it is desirable that the employee has the best skill in technical
disciplines (geophysics, chemistry, ecology, computer sciences, negotiation and
finances), and also, it has the best knowledge about local systems, such as transport,
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culture, gastronomy and law. Their DM should choose one employee from a set
composed by five options: Tommy, Jerry, Fred, Frank and Barney. Table IV shows the
performance of each alternative under each criterion.
Applying equation (8) to the data shown in Table IV, it results in the concordance
matrix, shown in Table V.
Assuming the concordance (ĉ) cut-level equal to 1.0, it results in the outranking graph
shown in Figure 12.
Applying the ELECTRE I rules (R.1 and R.2, Section 5.2) to build the partition from
this graph, it results in the following:
N ⫽ {Tommy, Fred}.
D ⫽ {Jerry, Frank, Barney}.
Comparing this result with the alternatives performance shown in Table IV, one can
conclude as follows:
• While using ĉ equal to 1.0 and d̂ equal to 0.0, N is the Pareto-optimal frontier. So,
choosing the alternatives in N (Tommy and Fred), the DM gets the maximum
performance he could obtain from the alternatives in A – in this case, the
performance (G) of the choice N is a vector such as: G(N) ⫽ G(Tommy, Fred) ⫽
{14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 12, 12}.
In other words, all other composition from A has performance no better than that
obtained by choice {Tommy, Fred}. So, the inclusion of an alternative from D into
the choice does not lift up the performance of the DM’s choice – because as an
assumption of ELECTRE, there is no interaction or superposition of effects among
any alternatives in A.

George

John Paul

Figure 11.
Outranking graph for
numerical Example 1 Mike Bob
 Alternatives
Interpretation
Criteria Tommy Jerry Fred Frank Barney of outranking
principles
Geophysics 14 11 9 10 8
Chemistry 14 11 9 10 8
Ecology 14 11 9 10 8
Computer Sciences 14 11 9 10 8
Finances 14 11 9 10 8
37
Negotiation 14 11 9 10 8
Transport system 14 11 9 10 8
Culture 14 9 10 13 8
Gastronomy 11 10 12 9 8 Table IV.
Law 11 10 12 9 8 Data for Example 2
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Alternative Tommy Jerry Fred Frank Barney

Tommy 1.0 1.0 0.8 1 1

Jerry 0.0 1 0.7 0.9 1
Fred 0.2 0.3 1.0 0.2 1 Table V.
Frank 0.0 0.1 0.8 1 1 Concordance matrix
Barney 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 for Example 2

Frank

Tommy Barney Fred

Figure 12.
Outranking graph for
Jerry numerical Example 2

• The subset N outranks the subset D, but this does not imply that all the
alternatives in N outrank all the alternatives in D. As a sample, in this numerical
example, Fred does not outrank Jerry, Frank or Barney (see Figure 12). So, the
inclusion of Fred in the subset N is not because it has a better performance than
Jerry, Frank or Barney. The reason for this inclusion is that Fred complements
Tommy, and the adoption of both alternatives (Fred and Tommy) hits the best
performance (G) that one can get from the set A of alternatives: G(N) ⫽
G({Tommy, Fred}) ⫽ {14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 14, 12, 12}. Observe, in Figure 13,
that Tommy supplied N with the best performance (equal to “14”) under the
criteria geophysics, chemistry, ecology, computer sciences, negotiation and
finances, whereas Fred supplied N with the greater performance (equal to “12”)
under the criteria gastronomy and law. Therefore, N has the best performance one
can get from A.
 JM2 Alternatives
11,1 Criteria Tommy Jerry Fred Frank Barney

Geophysics 14 11 9 10 8

Chemystri 14 11 9 10 8

Ecology 14 11 9 10 8
38 Computer Sciences 14 11 9 10 8

Finances 14 11 9 10 8

Negoaon 14 11 9 10 8

Tranport system 14 11 9 10 8

Figure 13. Culture 14 9 10 13 8

Highlighting the
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Gastronomy 11 10 12 9 8
performance of the
alternatives in N Law 11 10 12 9 8

6.3 Numerical example 3

This decision situation differs from the previous one by the fact that alternative Tommy
is no more available. As all other values in Table IV remain the same, the new
concordance matrix for this numerical example is as shown in Table VI.
For this situation, adopting a concordance cut-level ĉ equal to 1.0, and the Rules 3.1
and 3.2 (Section 5.2) of ELECTRE I rules to build the outranking graph, it results in the
diagram shown in Figure 14.
Applying ELECTRE I rules (R.1 and R.2, Section 5.2) to build the partition, it results
in the following:
N ⴝ {Jerry, Frank, Fred}.
D ⴝ {Barney}.
Comparing this result with the alternatives performance shown in Table IV, and
considering that Tommy is no more an alterative, one can conclude that for all the
criteria, the performance of alternative Barney is overlaid by the performance of the
alternatives in N. Therefore, Barney should be discarded from the choice.

Alternative Jerry Fred Frank Barney

Jerry 1 0.7 0.9 1

Table VI. Fred 0.3 1.0 0.2 1
Concordance matrix Frank 0.1 0.8 1 1
for Example 3 Barney 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Frank
Fred
Figure 14.
Outranking graph for Barney
numerical Example 3 Jerry
 Another observation is that again, the alternatives in N compose the Pareto-optimal Interpretation
frontier, so that if the DM choose to select N, he will obtain as the best performance the of outranking
set A: G(N) ⫽ G({Jerry, Frank, Fred}) ⫽ {11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 13, 12, 12}. Observe
that Jerry supplies N with the best performance (equal to “11”) under the criteria
principles
geophysics, chemistry, ecology, computer sciences and negotiation; Frank adds the
performance (“13”) under finances, while Fred improves N with the best performance
(“12”) under the criteria gastronomy and law. 39
6.4 Numerical example 4
Taking the same data of Example 3 but now aiming to reduce the number of alternatives
in N, one could make a relaxation in the cutting level, by adopting ĉ ⫽ 0.8. Figure 15
shows the outranking graph for this new situation.
Applying the ELECTRE I rules (R.1 and R.2) to build the partition, it results in the
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following:
N ⴝ {Jerry, Fred}.
D ⴝ {Frank, Barney}.
One can notice that while choosing N ⴝ {Fred, Jerry}, the performance of the choice is
G(N) ⫽ G({Jerry, Fred}) ⫽ {11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 10, 12, 12}. Observe that Jerry
supplies N with the best performance (“11”) under the criteria geophysics, chemistry,
ecology, computer sciences and negotiation; and Fred supplies N with the performance
(“10”) under the criterion finance and the performance (“12”) under gastronomy and law.
Shifting attention while studying the graph shown in Figure 15, one can notice the
occurrence of intransitivity, as Jerry does not outrank Fred in spite of Jerry outranking
Frank and Frank outranking Fred. This intransitivity should be more accepted if one
pays attention to the following physical situation, where intransitivity occurs.
Suppose the following “covering rule”: a wall X shadows another one Y if the shadow
of X covers at least 80 per cent of the front side of the wall Y. Now, take into account the
situation shown in Figure 16. In the left side of this sketch, there is a source of light that
shines over a set of three walls (A, B and C). Applying the “covering rule”, one could say
that A shadows B and that B shadows C, but A does not shadow C. So, there is an
intransitivity here, even in a physical situation. This kind of explanation could, by
analogy, be applied to explain intransitivity in ELECTRE I, if one realizes that aSb or “a
is at least not worse than b” is analog to say that “a covers b” or “a shadows b”.

7. About misinterpretation while analyzing the results from ELECTRE I

A careless analysis of the results of Example 6.4 could generate a misinterpretation, as
one could make the erroneous interpretation that “all the alternatives” in N outrank “all
the alternatives in D”.
In fact, the results from ELECTRE I imply that the overall basket or mix of
alternatives N outranks the set of alternatives in D, as a whole. So, ELECTRE I produces

Frank

Figure 15.
Jerry
Fred Outranking graph for
numerical Example
Barney 3, regarding ĉ⫽ 0.8
 JM2
11,1

40

Figure 16.
Three walls in line
generating shadow
over the floor
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a relationship between the subsets N and D, instead of relationship between alternatives

individually.
This wrong interpretation arises in some situations. Take as an example the situation
in which one considers that in Example 4, there is no more the possibility to choose
alternative Jerry, so that the set of alternatives becomes A⫽{Fred, Frank, Barney}. In
this situation, the outranking graph becomes as shown in Figure 17.
Applying the ELECTRE I rules (R.1 and R.2) to build the partition results in the
following:
N ⴝ {Frank}.
D ⴝ {Fred, Barney}.
By a careless analysis, this could mean a rank reversal, as Frank is now considered
better than Fred, while it was viewed as worse in the previous situation (Example 4)
when Jerry was in the subset A.
This is really a wrong interpretation. This misinterpretation is avoided if one pays
attention to Table VII that shows the grades or performances of each alternative under
the criteria set. The data in this table result from the exclusion of Tommy and Jerry from
the set of alternatives.
One can notice that, as a matter of fact, while choosing N ⴝ {Frank}, the performance
of the choice is G(N) ⫽ G({Frank}) ⫽ {10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 13, 9, 9}, which is better
than G({Fred}) ⫽ {9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10, 12, 12}, in the major criteria.
On the other hand, in the situation of Example 4 where Jerry was one of the
alternatives, the performance G({Jerry, Fred}) ⫽ {11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 10, 12, 12}
was quite better than G({Jerry, Frank) ⫽ {11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 13, 9, 9}. Therefore,
the choice of G(N) ⫽ G({Jerry, Fred}) in that situation is acceptable.
These last two paragraphs explain the misinterpretation about rank reversal in the
ELECTRE I results. Moreover, it is important to highlight the proposal of ELECTRE I:

Figure 17. Frank

Outranking graph,
Fred
regarding A ⫽
{Fred, Frank,
Barney} and ĉ ⫽ 0.8 Barney
 Alternatives
Interpretation
Criteria Fred Frank Barney of outranking
principles
Geophysics 9 10 8
Chemistry 9 10 8
Ecology 9 10 8
Computer Sciences 9 10 8
Finances 9 10 8
41
Negotiation 9 10 8
Transport system 9 10 8 Table VII.
Culture 80 83 8 Performance of Fred,
Gastronomy 82 9 8 Frank and Barney
Law 82 9 8 under the criteria set
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to indicate a set of alternatives to be chosen, instead of a ranking of alternatives.

Therefore, it is an error to consider that it has a problem of rank reversal among the
alternatives.

8. Conclusion
This paper makes use of visual and graphical description to raise the understanding
about the differences between preference and non-dominance functions in the ambit of
MCDA approaches.
The results emphasize the graphical interpretation of the ELECTRE I results,
highlighting that the overall performance of the basket or subset N outranks or covers
or overlays the performance of the basket or subset D as a whole. In spite of that, an
alternative in N could be outranked by another one in D.
The graphical analysis of ELECTRE I contributes to avoid misinterpretations of the
results, especially those associated to rank reversal and intransitivity.
This paper lifts up the applicability of ELECTRE I as a suitable method for the
selection of subsets or baskets of alternatives and stress that it makes the selection
without doing a previous ranking. Therefore, it is a wrong idea to realize that rank
reversal occurs in ELECTRE I.
As a method for selecting sets of alternatives that searches complementarities among
alternatives, ELECTRE I should be useful for selecting the composition of teams or in all
other similar situations.
As ELECTRE I and ELECTRE IS have the same basis and targets, the conclusions
here are extensible for ELECTRE IS.

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Further reading
Pereira, V. and Costa, H.G., “Nonlinear programming applied to the reduction of inconsistency in
the AHP method”, Annals of Operations Research, Vol. 229 No. 1, pp. 635-655. doi: 10.1007/
s10479-014-1750-z.

About the author

Helder Gomes Costa is a Full Professor at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF) in Brazil since
2006. He received his PhD degree in mechanical engineering from PUC-Rio. His research interests
include decision analysis, multicriteria decision aid, organizational performance, production
planning and control. Helder Gomes Costa can be contacted at: helder.hgc@gmail.com

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