IJAHP: Mu/What constitutes a novel AHP/ANP contribution? 

 

 
 
 

International Journal of the 

Analytic Hierarchy Process 

1 Vol. 9 Issue 1 2017 

ISSN 1936-6744 

https://doi.org/10.13033/ijahp.v9i1.483 

WHAT CONSTITUTES A NOVEL AHP/ANP CONTRIBUTION? 

 

 

 

 

We often receive inquiries about whether a particular study 

is novel or original enough to be published in our journal. 

Interestingly enough, whenever a potential author asks this 

question, the study is likely original enough for 

publication. Many other potential authors simply submit 

their studies with the assumption of originality, and they 

are surprised when they are told their study is not original 

enough to be published. For this reason, the question of 

what constitutes a novel study deserves some 

consideration. 

AHP/ANP methodologies were created to address decisions in many different domains. 

For this reason, and in principle, we would expect a contribution on the methodology 

(theoretical contribution) or its use (applied contribution). Discussions of AHP/ANP 

theoretical aspects are routinely present in our journal, and the paper “Achieving the 

desired level of dependency in ANP decision models” by Cooper and Liu, published in 

this issue, constitutes a good example of this. However, IJAHP also gives opportunities to 

applied contributions, provided they are original.  

 

Originality means that either the authors address decisions that have not been dealt with 

before, as done by Bahurmoz and Samrgandi’s study in their proposal to solve the current 

oil economic crisis in Saudi Arabia, or they address well-known decisions with a certain 

novel twist, as done by Agredo et al. in their development of a model for the selection of 

a customer relationship management system  (a well-known decision) but with a model 

simplified in such a way that it can be used by small businesses taking into account 

different stakeholder perspectives. These two characteristics, model simplicity and 

multiple perspectives constitute the different twist and contribution for the CRM 

selection problem.  

 

Finally, as in any other journal, we need to make sure that the addressed topic is of 

interest to a large number of IJAHP readers as well as ensuring that the study has been 

developed following the best scientific practice standards in use in the AHP/ANP 

community. The papers published in this issue are good examples of novel contributions. 

We look forward to receiving your own original contributions!  

 

Enjoy our first issue of the year, 

 
 

Enrique Mu, PhD 

Editor-in-chief 

https://doi.org/10.13033/ijahp.v9i1.483