Identifying the configurational paths to innovation in SMEs:a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis

Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this study investigates the conditions leading to a higher level of innovation. More specifically, the study explores the impact of inter-organisational knowledge transfer networks and organisations' internal capabilities on different types of innovation in Small to Medium size Enterprises (SMEs) in the high-tech sector. A survey instrument was used to collect data from a sample of UK SMEs. The findings show that although individual factors are important, there is no need for a company to perform well in all the areas. The fsQCA, which enables the examination of the impacts of different combinations of factors, reveals that there are a number of paths to achieve better incremental and radical innovation performance. Companies need to choose the one that is closest to their abilities and fits best with their resources.

Modulating membership grades to gain consensus for fuzzy set uncertainty values in a clinical decision support system

This paper deals with a very important issue in any knowledge engineering discipline: the accurate representation and modelling of real life data and its processing by human experts. The work is applied to the GRiST Mental Health Risk Screening Tool for assessing risks associated with mental-health problems. The complexity of risk data and the wide variations in clinicians' expert opinions make it difficult to elicit representations of uncertainty that are an accurate and meaningful consensus. It requires integrating each expert's estimation of a continuous distribution of uncertainty across a range of values. This paper describes an algorithm that generates a consensual distribution at the same time as measuring the consistency of inputs. Hence it provides a measure of the confidence in the particular data item's risk contribution at the input stage and can help give an indication of the quality of subsequent risk predictions. © 2010 IEEE.

Strategic logistics outsourcing:an integrated QFD and fuzzy AHP approach

This paper develops an integratedapproach, combining quality function deployment (QFD), fuzzy set theory, and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach, to evaluate and select the optimal third-party logistics service providers (3PLs). In the approach, multiple evaluating criteria are derived from the requirements of company stakeholders using a series of house of quality (HOQ). The importance of evaluating criteria is prioritized with respect to the degree of achieving the stakeholder requirements using fuzzyAHP. Based on the ranked criteria, alternative 3PLs are evaluated and compared with each other using fuzzyAHP again to make an optimal selection. The effectiveness of proposed approach is demonstrated by applying it to a Hong Kong based enterprise that supplies hard disk components. The proposed integratedapproach outperforms the existing approaches because the outsourcing strategy and 3PLs selection are derived from the corporate/business strategy.

A fuzzy levelised energy cost method for renewable energy technology assessment

Renewable energy project development is highly complex and success is by no means guaranteed. Decisions are often made with approximate or uncertain information yet the current methods employed by decision-makers do not necessarily accommodate this. Levelised energy costs (LEC) are one such commonly applied measure utilised within the energy industry to assess the viability of potential projects and inform policy. The research proposes a method for achieving this by enhancing the traditional discounting LEC measure with fuzzy set theory. Furthermore, the research develops the fuzzy LEC (F-LEC) methodology to incorporate the cost of financing a project from debt and equity sources. Applied to an example bioenergy project, the research demonstrates the benefit of incorporating fuzziness for project viability, optimal capital structure and key variable sensitivity analysis decision-making. The proposed method contributes by incorporating uncertain and approximate information to the widely utilised LEC measure and by being applicable to a wide range of energy project viability decisions. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The state of the art in fuzzy data envelopment analysis

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a methodology for measuring the relative efficiencies of a set of decision making units (DMUs) that use multiple inputs to produce multiple outputs. Crisp input and output data are fundamentally indispensable in conventional DEA. However, the observed values of the input and output data in real-world problems are sometimes imprecise or vague. Many researchers have proposed various fuzzy methods for dealing with the imprecise and ambiguous data in DEA. This chapter provides a taxonomy and review of the fuzzy DEA (FDEA) methods. We present a classification scheme with six categories, namely, the tolerance approach, the α-level based approach, the fuzzy ranking approach, the possibility approach, the fuzzy arithmetic, and the fuzzy random/type-2 fuzzy set. We discuss each classification scheme and group the FDEA papers published in the literature over the past 30 years. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Reliability of vegetation community information derived using decorana ordination and fuzzy c-means clustering

Descriptions of vegetation communities are often based on vague semantic terms describing species presence and dominance. For this reason, some researchers advocate the use of fuzzy sets in the statistical classification of plant species data into communities. In this study, spatially referenced vegetation abundance values collected from Greek phrygana were analysed by ordination (DECORANA), and classified on the resulting axes using fuzzy c-means to yield a point data-set representing local memberships in characteristic plant communities. The fuzzy clusters matched vegetation communities noted in the field, which tended to grade into one another, rather than occupying discrete patches. The fuzzy set representation of the community exploited the strengths of detrended correspondence analysis while retaining richer information than a TWINSPAN classification of the same data. Thus, in the absence of phytosociological benchmarks, meaningful and manageable habitat information could be derived from complex, multivariate species data. We also analysed the influence of the reliability of different surveyors' field observations by multiple sampling at a selected sample location. We show that the impact of surveyor error was more severe in the Boolean than the fuzzy classification. © 2007 Springer.

What counts versus what can be counted:the complex interplay of market orientation and marketing performance measurement

Market orientation (MO) and marketing performance measurement (MPM) are two of the most widespread strategic marketing concepts among practitioners. However, some have questioned the benefits of extensive investments in MO and MPM. More importantly, little is known about which combinations of MO and MPM are optimal in ensuring high business performance. To address this research gap, the authors analyze a unique data set of 628 firms with a novel method of configurational analysis: fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. In line with prior research, the authors find that MO is an important determinant of business performance. However, to reap its benefits, managers need to complement it with appropriate MPM, the level and focus of which vary across firms. For example, whereas large firms and market leaders generally benefit from comprehensive MPM, small firms may benefit from measuring marketing performance only selectively or by focusing on particular dimensions of marketing performance. The study also finds that many of the highest-performing firms do not follow any of the particular best practices identified.

A new fuzzy additive model for determining the common set of weights in Data Envelopment Analysis

The main advantage of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is that it does not require any priori weights for inputs and outputs and allows individual DMUs to evaluate their efficiencies with the input and output weights that are only most favorable weights for calculating their efficiency. It can be argued that if DMUs are experiencing similar circumstances, then the pricing of inputs and outputs should apply uniformly across all DMUs. That is using of different weights for DMUs makes their efficiencies unable to be compared and not possible to rank them on the same basis. This is a significant drawback of DEA; however literature observed many solutions including the use of common set of weights (CSW). Besides, the conventional DEA methods require accurate measurement of both the inputs and outputs; however, crisp input and output data may not relevant be available in real world applications. This paper develops a new model for the calculation of CSW in fuzzy environments using fuzzy DEA. Further, a numerical example is used to show the validity and efficacy of the proposed model and to compare the results with previous models available in the literature.

An overall profit Malmquist productivity index with fuzzy and interval data

Although crisp data are fundamentally indispensable for determining the profit Malmquist productivity index (MPI), the observed values in real-world problems are often imprecise or vague. These imprecise or vague data can be suitably characterized with fuzzy and interval methods. In this paper, we reformulate the conventional profit MPI problem as an imprecise data envelopment analysis (DEA) problem, and propose two novel methods for measuring the overall profit MPI when the inputs, outputs, and price vectors are fuzzy or vary in intervals. We develop a fuzzy version of the conventional MPI model by using a ranking method, and solve the model with a commercial off-the-shelf DEA software package. In addition, we define an interval for the overall profit MPI of each decision-making unit (DMU) and divide the DMUs into six groups according to the intervals obtained for their overall profit efficiency and MPIs. We also present two numerical examples to demonstrate the applicability of the two proposed models and exhibit the efficacy of the procedures and algorithms. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.

A soft-computing-based method for the automatic discovery of fuzzy rules in databases:uses for academic research and management support in marketing

The study here highlights the potential that analytical methods based on Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) methodologies have to aid both the resolution of unstructured marketing/business problems and the process of scholarly knowledge discovery. The authors present and discuss the application of KDD in these situations prior to the presentation of an analytical method based on fuzzy logic and evolutionary algorithms, developed to analyze marketing databases and uncover relationships among variables. A detailed implementation on a pre-existing data set illustrates the method. © 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc.

Fuzzy data envelopment analysis:a discrete approach

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) as introduced by Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (1978) is a linear programming technique that has widely been used to evaluate the relative efficiency of a set of homogenous decision making units (DMUs). In many real applications, the input-output variables cannot be precisely measured. This is particularly important in assessing efficiency of DMUs using DEA, since the efficiency score of inefficient DMUs are very sensitive to possible data errors. Hence, several approaches have been proposed to deal with imprecise data. Perhaps the most popular fuzzy DEA model is based on a-cut. One drawback of the a-cut approach is that it cannot include all information about uncertainty. This paper aims to introduce an alternative linear programming model that can include some uncertainty information from the intervals within the a-cut approach. We introduce the concept of "local a-level" to develop a multi-objective linear programming to measure the efficiency of DMUs under uncertainty. An example is given to illustrate the use of this method.

Efficiency measurement in fuzzy additive data envelopment analysis

Performance evaluation in conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) requires crisp numerical values. However, the observed values of the input and output data in real-world problems are often imprecise or vague. These imprecise and vague data can be represented by linguistic terms characterised by fuzzy numbers in DEA to reflect the decision-makers' intuition and subjective judgements. This paper extends the conventional DEA models to a fuzzy framework by proposing a new fuzzy additive DEA model for evaluating the efficiency of a set of decision-making units (DMUs) with fuzzy inputs and outputs. The contribution of this paper is threefold: (1) we consider ambiguous, uncertain and imprecise input and output data in DEA, (2) we propose a new fuzzy additive DEA model derived from the a-level approach and (3) we demonstrate the practical aspects of our model with two numerical examples and show its comparability with five different fuzzy DEA methods in the literature. Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

General and multiplicative non-parametric corporate performance models with interval ratio data

The increasing intensity of global competition has led organizations to utilize various types of performance measurement tools for improving the quality of their products and services. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a methodology for evaluating and measuring the relative efficiencies of a set of decision making units (DMUs) that use multiple inputs to produce multiple outputs. All the data in the conventional DEA with input and/or output ratios assumes the form of crisp numbers. However, the observed values of data in real-world problems are sometimes expressed as interval ratios. In this paper, we propose two new models: general and multiplicative non-parametric ratio models for DEA problems with interval data. The contributions of this paper are fourfold: (1) we consider input and output data expressed as interval ratios in DEA; (2) we address the gap in DEA literature for problems not suitable or difficult to model with crisp values; (3) we propose two new DEA models for evaluating the relative efficiencies of DMUs with interval ratios, and (4) we present a case study involving 20 banks with three interval ratios to demonstrate the applicability and efficacy of the proposed models where the traditional indicators are mostly financial ratios. © 2011 Elsevier Inc.

A taxonomy and review of the fuzzy data envelopment analysis literature:two decades in the making

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a methodology for measuring the relative efficiencies of a set of decision making units (DMUs) that use multiple inputs to produce multiple outputs. Crisp input and output data are fundamentally indispensable in conventional DEA. However, the observed values of the input and output data in real-world problems are sometimes imprecise or vague. Many researchers have proposed various fuzzy methods for dealing with the imprecise and ambiguous data in DEA. In this study, we provide a taxonomy and review of the fuzzy DEA methods. We present a classification scheme with four primary categories, namely, the tolerance approach, the a-level based approach, the fuzzy ranking approach and the possibility approach. We discuss each classification scheme and group the fuzzy DEA papers published in the literature over the past 20 years. To the best of our knowledge, this paper appears to be the only review and complete source of references on fuzzy DEA. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An integer-valued data envelopment analysis model with bounded outputs

Integer-valued data envelopment analysis (DEA) with alternative returns to scale technology has been introduced and developed recently by Kuosmanen and Kazemi Matin. The proportionality assumption of their introduced "natural augmentability" axiom in constant and nondecreasing returns to scale technologies makes it possible to achieve feasible decision-making units (DMUs) of arbitrary large size. In many real world applications it is not possible to achieve such production plans since some of the input and output variables are bounded above. In this paper, we extend the axiomatic foundation of integer-valuedDEAmodels for including bounded output variables. Some model variants are achieved by introducing a new axiom of "boundedness" over the selected output variables. A mixed integer linear programming (MILP) formulation is also introduced for computing efficiency scores in the associated production set. © 2011 The Authors. International Transactions in Operational Research © 2011 International Federation of Operational Research Societies.