Multicriteria decision aid in financial management

The ®nancial decisions of an organization are usually included in the context of optimization. Concerning a longterm period, there are decisions related to the optimal allocation of funds, and decisions related to the optimal ®nancial structure. In the short-term case, the decisions are related to the optimization of stocks, cash, accounts receivable, current liabilities, etc. The ®nancial theory analyzes these decisions, mainly from an optimal point of view. The optimal character of such decisions has led researchers to propose operations research techniques to solve the problems that are inherent in such decisions. This paper examines the contribution of multicriteria analysis in solving ®nancial decision problems in a realistic context. The paper also includes an extensive bibliography on the subject. Ó 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.