Three-phase hierarchical allocation of university resources via interactive fuzzy goal programming

Abstract This paper proposes interactive fuzzy goal programming models for the efficient allocation of financial and academic resources in universities, which addresses both the problem of making the most satisficing decisions among alternative courses of action and the efficient substitution and expansion of university resources by means of feedback from and interaction with decision makers. The proposed modeling procedures take into account both decision making in a fuzzy environment and the decentralized nature of decision processes within the university, which are largely ignored by the existing literature on academic resource allocation problems. In order to model the hierarchical allocation process in a way which takes account of different levels of decision making, i.e. university, college and department level allocation decisions, we develop multiphase decomposition submodels. The decomposition modeling schemes are designed for predicting how lower-level decision makers will react once higher-level decisions are made. Finally, applications of the mathematical models to the Ohio State University are presented and discussed.