A limited cost consensus approach with fairness concern and its application

People will always consciously or unconsciously compare their cost or benefits of actions with those of others and make judgments about fairness. Aiming at consensus reaching process where decision makers have fairness concern behaviors, this paper proposes a limited cost consensus model with fairness concern. To do this, we define the fairness utility function and fairness utility level based on fairness preference theory and explore some properties. In view of this, we propose a limited cost consensus approach with fairness concern of decision makers, which can obtain a stable and balanced consensus. Through emission reduction consensus problem of Chinese manufacturing enterprises, comparative analysis and sensitivity analysis are used to explain the proposed model. Conclusions about fairness preferences, consensus cost budget, and unit compensation cost can provide significant managerial references for real-world economic and management activities.