Decision-making for new technology: A multi-actor, multi-objective method

Technology managers increasingly face problems of group decision. The scale and complexity of research, development and alliance efforts in emerging fields of technology mandate as correspondingly sophisticated form of group coordination. Information technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology are good examples of sectors with complex coordination problems. Choices made include the selection of projects, the choice of investment alternatives, and the formation of technology licensing agreements. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods are often used to help decision-makers in such situations. This paper explores an approach closely related to MCDA, known as exchange modeling. Exchange modeling incorporates actor preferences, and assumptions about the play of the game, to better examine the resulting preferences of groups. The advantage of this method is that the results provide an improved prescription for strategy, given the constraints of preferences and existing alliance structures. The model is motivated based upon the needs of technology managers in new, converging fields of technology. The model is formally analyzed using operations research techniques. We then apply the model to a representative technology management problem in the converging fields of informatics, bio and nanotechnology.