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Recent developments and the actual status regarding Digital Work are described for the East Asia/Pacific region, based on data and analyses available for the region. This includes aspects like decent work, the effects of digital technologies on tasks, competences, labor market opportunities, the effects of digital work and labor platforms, and issues of gender (in)equality. Challenges and political actions taken by national governments are described by looking at the example of Taiwan, one of the most advanced economies in East Asia and worldwide.

PurposeThis paper proposes an integrated knowledge visualization and digital twin system for supporting strategic management decisions. The concepts and applications of strategic architecture have been illustrated with a concrete real-world case study and decision rules of using the strategic digital twin management decision system (SDMDS) as a more visualized, adaptive and effective model for decision-making.Design/methodology/approachThis paper integrates the concepts of mental and computer models and examines a real case's business operations by applying system dynamics modelling and digital technologies. The enterprise digital twin system with displaying real-world data and simulations for future scenarios demonstrates an improved process of strategic decision-making in the digital age.FindingsThe findings reveal that data analytics and the visualized enterprise digital twin system offer better practices for strategic management decisions in the dynamic and constantly changing business world by providing a constant and frequent adjustment on every decision that affects how the business performs over both operational and strategic timescales.Originality/valueIn the digital age and dynamic business environment, the proposed strategic architecture and managerial digital twin system converts the existing conceptual models into an advanced operational model. It can facilitate the development of knowledge visualization and become a more adaptive and effective model for supporting real-time management decision-making by dealing with the complicated dependence of constant flow of data input, output and the feedback loop across business units and boundaries.

Cultural and creative products are incredibly diverse that difficult to mass-produce and fail to meet market demands. The unique characteristics and the cultural and sales value of cultural and creative products must be highlighted through the application of multifunctional design. As a scientific approach, the Delphi method and fuzzy logic theory were applied to create a multiattribute DFuzzy decision model for cultural and creative product design. This model is intended to enable objective, quantitative auxiliary decision evaluation for product design, providing a reference for optimization of commodity production. Fuzzy logic is one of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and quantifies the fuzzy semantics of human languages. The Delphi method enables group decision-making among experts, thus contributing to the scientific and objective nature of the DFuzzy model. The 16 Delphi experts invited to participate in this study were the chief executive officers in the cultural and creative industry, local cultural management commissioners, and domain knowledge professors, all of whom had at least 12 years of experience in cultural and creative industry development. The experts reached a consensus regarding 19 preliminary criteria identified through a three-round Delphi process. The four criteria suitable for the DFuzzy model were determined to be cultural images, innovation and creativity, customer demand, and city charm. The model was then applied to evaluate three cases, a multifunctional scale ruler, a toy robot, and an agricultural specialty product. Another consensus was then reached by the experts through a two-round Delphi process, and the four criteria were validated. Thus, the objective quantitative calculation function of the DFuzzy model was confirmed along with its applicability for auxiliary decision-making in cultural and creative product design and education.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to integrate modern decision sciences and develop a dynamic risk management model for international alliance engineering design projects. Design/methodology/approach To apply the model to real-world risk assessment and managerial decision-making, a mega project case study was conducted. System dynamics and computer simulations were used for improving quantitative analyses and scenario planning. Findings Based on the consideration and analyses of different cooperation risk factors, ripple effects of design error is found to be the key factor of subcontract management in international alliance projects in this study. Research limitations/implications This study provides a rationale for dynamic risk management decisions and enables international alliance companies to systematically control the cooperation risks in the execution of projects. Practical implications In the dynamic project management process, a significant increase in the design error rate does not unilaterally occur but is caused by subcontract and other management errors as a system problem. Integrative solutions with systems thinking would help the management. Originality/value This study proposed a framework of measuring project performance and dynamic risk management. The benchmarked case study demonstrates the capability of the proposed model for the feedback learning of business lessons and knowledge accumulations.

Purpose This study aims to examine the key determinants of word-of-mouth intentions among freshmen in a Taiwanese college. It investigates the causal relationships among different indicators of organizational sustainable development. Design/methodology/approach An empirical study is conducted on a sample of 3,159 college freshmen. A survey instrument with 41 measurement items are used to recognize the implementation of management practices at the college level. Descriptive statistical and multiple regression analyzes are performed to analyze the data, using SPSS software. Findings The results show that course identity, professional identity toward teachers, self-identity, learning attitude and satisfaction have a positive and significant impact on word-of-mouth intentions. Among these, satisfaction is the most crucial influencing factor. Colleges, particularly Taiwanese colleges competing in the field of higher education, must identify critical factors influencing the implementation of management practices to increase performance. Practical implications This study’s findings make a valuable contribution to understanding management practices in Taiwanese colleges. In addition, they serve as important guidelines for Taiwanese colleges to implement management practices effectively. The findings can also help improve organizational sustainable development, in view of the new insights they offer on the topic of the determinants of word-of-mouth intentions among Taiwanese college freshmen. Originality/value This study contributes to management practices in Taiwan-based colleges. It provides crucial information for decision-makers involved in the implementation of management practices in colleges and serves as a useful reference for further research in this area.

Science parks and innovation policies have a major mission in driving innovative resources and nurturing emerging industries, while the government-academia-industry collaborations and the establishment of an ecosystem are essentials. To investigate the key driving forces for sustainable development of the collaborative ecosystem, this article evaluates the technological innovations and the ecosystem of Science Parks in Shanghai based on historical data obtained from Shanghai Zhangjiang Science Park (Zhangjiang Park in short). Systems thinking and causal loop analysis are adopted to explore the structure of the collaborative ecosystem and reflections of the policy impact on the science park. The role of the government in science parks and innovation ecosystems is identified with systems mapping and empirical study. The economic impact of Zhangjiang Park policies and the performance of innovation activities in Shanghai are further evaluated. Lessons learnt from the benchmarked science parks and policy implications for facilitating the innovation ecosystem are addressed.

Rural areas in southern China receive ample rainfall annually as well as over 1600 h of annual sunshine. Despite a generally severe urban–rural development imbalance, these rural areas feature well-developed basic infrastructure and diverse economic activities. Rural revitalization policies in these areas have emphasized the development of cultural and ecological tourism, which has spurred economic development and given rise to a trend of villa construction. Residential buildings sit on large areas where natural resources are abundant. These advantages are conducive to the development and use of sustainable resources. This study proposes an incentive policy encouraging rural residents to renovate their buildings to include rainwater conservation and solar power generation. The Delphi method, an analytic hierarchy process, and fuzzy logic theory were combined to establish an AI-MCDM model, with applications of artificial intelligence and multiple-criteria decision making. Using Conghua District, Guangdong Province as an example, the study suggested that the model is beneficial to increasing the willingness of rural residents to reconstruct and renovate their residences, promoting the development of a low-carbon ecological region, Wenquan Township. We conducted the Delphi process twice to assess and validate incentives for installing natural resource conservation structures in agricultural areas. Nine criteria were identified, which can be divided into three main dimensions of participation situation, generating capacity, and storage facilities. The proposed AI-MCDM model developed using the Delphi–Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process Model has high objectivity and can support rural areas in developing low-carbon, sustainable characteristics. The findings can serve as a reference for governments formulating incentives to encourage the installation of rainwater conservation and solar energy generation structures by rural households.

E-business and e-commerce services have been globally applied across various industries in the digital era. Leading e-commerce platform companies should invite open innovation to explore new market...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors influencing bargaining decisions and systematically develop a framework to support collaborative innovation within a strategic alliance. This framework can help companies resolve bargaining problems and facilitate cooperation and effective negotiation of strategic alliances to build successful business relationships. Design/methodology/approach The study considers Taiwanese agents’ bargaining power during negotiations with suppliers, using decision analysis to identify the variables affecting judgment. It uses Delphi–AHP methods to evaluate and develop a multi-criteria model explaining the critical factors to increase agents’ bargaining power and collaborative capability in the negotiation process. Findings Two significant differences between supply chain management practices and managerial specialty are found. Results suggest that better supply chain management practices of agents could assist suppliers in reducing their stock and processing delivery costs, and suppliers could offer more of their marketing planning and strategies to agents to increase confidence in each other’s products. Research limitations/implications It is hoped that this study will encourage more academics in the supply chain management field to investigate the extent to which other bargaining considerations act as facilitating or constraining factors in other Asian and non-Asian economies and other industries. Practical implications This study focuses on collaborative thinking and cooperation to develop and improve positive and relational outcomes in agent–supplier relationships. Originality/value The study analyzed the bargaining power of agents and collaborative innovation in the semiconductor industry from three major perspectives: professional competence, managerial competence and channel efficiency. The study provides effective suggestions for enhancing profits in agency-based cooperation.

As engineering is required to answer directly and more heartily than before the requirement of society and markets, we want to answer the following questions. What kind of open innovation channels exist, and how can these channels operate as a knowledge funnel to conquer the growth limit of capitalism in the 4th industrial revolution? At first, we built up the concept model of open innovation engineering from a conceptual experiment and attempted to prove this model by literature reviews. Second, we applied this open innovation concept model at the papers of Society of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity (SOI) 2019 Special Issues of Electronics as a preliminary study. Additional field researches on each open innovation engineering channel in addition to research on finding out more open innovation engineering channels are required.

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) is prevailing, the concept of creating sharedvalue (CSV) by coordinating business activities and social concerns brings a great opportunity totransforming the business model for sustainable development. To better understand the systemscomprising corporate shared value chains would be beneficial to economics, society, andsustainability. This study refers to the ecosystem as the theoretical lens in the exploration of the CSVcomponents and contexts, and takes Macy&rsquo, s as a focal case. In terms of academic contributions, thisstudy generalizes the CSV components, including markets, social innovations, social performances,new business models, corporate entrepreneurship, and social network support. The researchfindings contribute to conceptualize and systemize the concept of CSV. In terms of practicalcontributions, the contexts for the operation of CSV, as summarized by this study, can serve as atemplate for corporate planning of CSV activities and sustainable development.

In the globally competitive environment, open business innovations have become one of the essential strategies for enterprises to develop competitiveness and market potential. However, the executio...

The paper constructs a sectoral system of innovation model specifically for the mobile payments (m-payments) sector. Both the UK and Indian sectoral system of innovation were studied in regards of the actors involved in providing the m-payment service with an emphasis on emergent business models. We integrated open innovation and Ogle&rsquo, s ideas into our model and demonstrated the importance of active agency in shaping innovation systems, for example in leveraging existing social networks. The research draws upon original interviews with companies and regulators in both India and the UK. Our overall conclusion is that the m-payments sectoral system of innovation in India is more customer-oriented and far-reaching as compared to the practices in UK. It concludes that no matter the context, the importance of integrating firms&rsquo, activity into integrated service systems in demand-driven innovation is key for success.

The Industrial Revolution has enabled mechanization to lead the manufacturing industry into a new era of explosive economic growth. Mass production through the use of machines has improved the overall societal prosperity in industrialized countries. The great and continuous demand of mechanization, economic growth, and energy consumption has resulted in the excessive use of natural resources and the mining of natural energy deposits. Challenges such as serious environmental pollution, ecological damage, and climate change have been identified as some of the critical issues for sustainable development. Therefore, this paper proposes a Delphi and Fuzzy (DFuzzy) model in order to institute low-carbon ecocities. DFuzzy is a scientific decision-making model with quantitative multiple attributes and artificial intelligence. Twelve specialists from the Delphi experts were interviewed, including chief executive officers (CEOs) of industries, management committee members, and senior academics, all of whom have 15 years of experience in urban planning practice. After a three-round Delphi process with 17 criteria that were taken from the literature, four criteria of the DFuzzy model were recognized by experts: policy norms, resident cooperation, pollution prevention and control, and ecological reserves. The practical application of the DFuzzy model took three areas as examples: the Baiyun District and Conghua District of Guangzhou City, and the Dahu Community of Kaohsiung City. Through the experts’ consensus in the two-round Delphi process, the four criteria, as the input basis, demonstrated the objective quantitative calculation function of the DFuzzy model and also indicated that the model established in this study provides a reference for evaluating low-carbon ecocities.

Amid increased emphasis on sustainable development, understanding the sustainability initiative and practice of companies has attracted the attention of both academia and industry. Corporate sustainability combines triple values including environmental protection, social wellbeing, and economic benefit for companies. Drawing on institutional theory and employing an inductive case research method, we examine companies developing their green innovation and sustainability projects in a challenging context of China. Four representative case studies and in-depth interviews were conducted to examine how these firms overcome barriers in the less developed institutional environment. To better explain corporate sustainability with green innovations, a conceptual framework has been proposed to illustrate how firms operate in a network of relationship and cooperate with their external stakeholders. Firms&rsquo, strategies to dynamically achieve the aim of corporate sustainability were identified based on a co-evolutional mechanism in the interface between institutions and organizations.

Since Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum declared the arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, there has been much discussion about it. However, there is no commonly agreed-upon definition of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Therefore, we attempted to answer the following four research questions. &ldquo, What is the definition of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?&rdquo, &ldquo, How can we respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution in terms of institutions?&rdquo, How can we respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution in terms of technology?&rdquo, How can we respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution in terms of firm innovation and start-up strategy?&rdquo, Brainstorming was conducted by 11 scholars from several countries to answer these four research questions. Therefore, this research is not the end product of four research questions, but a kind of advanced template to answer the four research questions for continuing research.

The influence and importance of research and development (R&D) for business sustainability have gained increasing interests, especially in the high-tech sector. However, the efforts of R&D might cause complex and mixed impacts on the financial results considering the associated expenses. Thus, this study aims to examine how R&D efforts may influence business to improve its financial performance considering the dual objectives: the gross and the net profitability. This research integrated a rough-set-based soft computing technique and multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods to explore this complex and yet valuable issue. A group of public listed companies from Taiwan, all in the semiconductor sector, was analyzed as a case study. Initially, more than 30 variables were considered, and the adopted soft computing technique retrieved 14 core attributes—for the dual profitability objectives—to form the evaluation model. The importance of R&D for pursuing superior financial prospects is confirmed, and the empirical case demonstrates how to guide an individual company to plan for improvements to achieve its long-term sustainability by this hybrid approach.

The present study explores the impacts of corporate strategic orientation on innovation ecosystems through the perspective of systems thinking. Multiple-cases method was adopted to analyze three representative companies of different industries. In terms of academic contribution, the results of this study verify an innovation ecosystem model in a generalized manner, and find that market orientation, interaction orientation, and entrepreneurial orientation generate a positively reinforcing effect on the paths of the innovation ecosystem model in all phases, thus, diversifying the available literature of innovative ecosystems. In terms of practical contribution, this study presents a dynamic context of the development of new business, and describes the links between innovative activities and the market. Enterprises can refer to the proposed framework as well as strategic architecture in this study to effectively transform innovative activities into market performance.

High-technology industries provide opportunities for economic growth, but also raise concerns because of their energy-demanding nature. This paper provides an integrated evaluation of both economic benefits and energy efficiency of high-technology industries based on the real data from one of the globally recognized high-technology industrial clusters, the national science parks in Taiwan. A nation-wide industrial Input-Output Analysis is conducted to demonstrate the positive effects of science parks on national economic developments and industrial upgrades. The concept of energy intensity and an energy-efficient economy index are applied to an integrated assessment of the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption. The proposed case study suggests that economic and energy efficiency objectives can be simultaneously achieved by the development of high-technology industries, while three energy policy implications are considered. First, a nation-wide macro viewpoint is needed and high-technology industries should be considered as parts of the national/regional economies by governmental agencies. Second, a proper industrial clustering mechanism and the shared environmental facilities supported by the government, such as planned land and road usage, electricity and water supply, telecommunications system, sewerage system and wastewater treatments, can improve energy efficiency of high-technology industries. Third, the governmental policies on the taxing and management system in science parks would also direct energy-efficient economy of high-technology industries.

Proper budgeting and cost control are essential efforts for a successful project. The task has been conventionally supported by sophisticated project cost estimation from a production perspective. However, from a transaction cost perspective, the alliance risks with inter-organizational partners in joint venture (JV) projects should always be considered for budgeting. Aiming to assess the risks of a JV project, this paper proposes a transaction cost incorporated budgeting model with multi-criteria utility analysis. A case study is presented to demonstrate the applications of the proposed model which would help project managers to identify a proper risk contingency for practical project budgeting in construction JVs. The rationale of estimating the alliance risks with different partners is also enhanced by the proposed model.

Man consumes energy and community, the basic unit of urban development, is also an integrated energy -consuming unit. Sustainable community construction is a development model for local redevelopment which integrates culture and local features. Hence, incorporating a low-carbon concept into a sustainable community construction model will help reduce a community's carbon footprint. Community energy-saving polices can be effectively promoted by guidance, evaluation, feature development and sustainable management as well as heritage programs. This study applies Delphi method, analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and fuzzy logic in building a quantitative evaluation model for sustainable community construction low-carbon development effectiveness, to compare community low-carbon and energy saving development levels by calculating quantitative values as the basis for merits. In addition to testing the effectiveness of self-development of features, this study can also provide the government with a reference and criteria to evaluate the performance of low-carbon community construction projects.

Finance–base or Service Delivery approaches were utilized to dominate BOT projects but both approaches require a reasonable self–financing ability ratio (SFA). In addition, few studies show successfully implemented BOT schemes with low SFA. To examine the heuristic rule, two cases including one of the largest BOT projects, Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR) Transportation Plan, are used to conduct interview correspondence, close examination, and analysis of the document of concessionaire selection. We draw on the experience of the process of the Large–scale Rail Transportation concessionaire selection practices where the story of PPP s projects remains limited worldwide. In our case, government involves financing the BOT project to provide a long–term loan guarantee for the private sector on the finance aspect. The issues which cause BOT construction to be costly as well as

National policies for science parks and innovation have been identified as one of the major driving forces for the innovation-driven economy, especially for publicly funded science parks. To investigate this collaborative ecosystem (government-academia-industry) for growth and sustainable development, this paper proposes a nation-wide economic impact analysis of science parks and innovation policy based on historical data drawn from one of the globally recognized high-technology industrial clusters in Taiwan. Systems thinking with causal loop analysis are adopted to improve our understanding of the collaborative ecosystem with science park policies. First, from a holistic viewpoint, the role of government in a science parks and innovation ecosystem is reviewed. A systems analysis of an innovation-driven economy with a science park policy is presented as a strategy map for policy implementers. Second, the added economic value and employment of the benchmarked science parks is evaluated from a long range perspective. Third, the concepts of government-academia-industry collaboration and policies to innovation ecosystem are introduced while addressing the measures and performance of innovation and applied R&D in the science parks. We conclude with a discussion of lessons learned and the policy implications of science park development and an innovation ecosystem.

Abnormally low bids and contractors’ opportunistic bidding behavior are frequently observed in the competitive bidding system. Many research findings have pointed out that price competition itself ...

The impacts of high technology industries have been growing increasingly to technological innovations and global economic developments, while the concerns in sustainability are calling for facilitating green materials and cleaner production in the industrial value chains. Today’s manufacturing companies are not striving for individual capacities but for the effective working with green supply chains. However, in addition to environmental and social objectives, cost and economic feasibility has become one of the most critical success factors for improving supply chain management with green component procurement collaboration, especially for the electronics OEM (original equipment manufacturing) companies whose procurement costs often make up a very high proportion of final product prices. This paper presents a case study from the systems perspective by using System Dynamics simulation analysis and statistical validations with empirical data. Empirical data were collected from Taiwanese manufacturing chains—among the world’s largest manufacturing clusters of high technology components and products—and their global green suppliers to examine the benefits of green component procurement collaborations in terms of shared costs and improved shipping time performance. Two different supply chain collaboration models, from multi-layer ceramic capacitor (MLCC) and universal serial bus 3.0 (USB 3.0) cable procurements, were benchmarked and statistically validated. The results suggest that the practices of collaborative planning for procurement quantity and accurate fulfillment by suppliers are significantly related to cost effectiveness and shipping time efficiency. Although the price negotiation of upstream raw materials for the collaborative suppliers has no statistically significant benefit to the shipping time efficiency, the shared cost reduction of component procurement is significantly positive for supply chain collaboration among green manufacturers. Managerial implications toward sustainable supply chain management were also discussed.

Constructors are facing, constantly, complicated problems occasioned by culture, frequent policy changes, and other related factors when conducting Joint Ventures (JVs) in Mainland China. Hoping to decrease the risk of JVs in China for international constructors, this study applies Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Utility Theory to develop a multi-criterion risk assessment model for construction pre-JVs stage and to integrate World Wide Web (WWW) and company Databases. This model demonstrates the advantage of inspiring the evaluators to make more objective and systematic assessment; and more important, its on-line assessment function can demolish regional, spatial and time barriers, which will help the decision-making team use computers to participate in long-distance evaluations of users’ ends at any time and any place. Moreover, each member of the team can fully participate in the process which lifts efficiency and improves decision-making assessments.

Building and construction sectors are significant contributors to the global economy, but their energy consumption necessitates greater commitment to sustainable developments. There is therefore a growing demand for green innovation in the form of cleaner production and policies to meet the modern requirements of sustainability. However, the nature in which public work is undertaken is in an environment of project-based market competition, whereby contractors routinely bid for contracts under specific project awarding systems, and variations are accompanied with the unique scope of individual projects before the final goods or services are delivered. A comprehensive understanding of the characteristics and contractors’ behavior in systems could help to identify the leverage points of policies. This paper proposes a system dynamics model, with quantitative analysis and simulations, to demonstrate the problems of a system with different project awarding systems and ineffective market performance. The framework of market efficiency and performance measures has been proposed to evaluate the project-based competition mechanism. Managerial policy implications for market efficiency and sustainable developments can thus be systematically discussed and compared through iterative computer simulations and scenario analysis.

There is a large demand for and a large profit potential in the Chinese housing market. However, foreign investors still suffer high risk because they are unfamiliar with the complexities of this enormous market. This paper presents the issues associated with housing sales in the People's Republic of China and the applications of Fuzzy Logic and Delphi Method to the prediction of sales performance in China's housing. Furthermore, the study presents the concept of an AND/OR logic gate based model, so that expert knowledge can be converted through computation into the needed rules for decision making related to housing sales performance prediction. The logic gate model is useful for ‘if‐then’ rule analysis, monitoring during the model building and amendment process, and in model maintenance in the later stages of its application. The aim of the described model is to provide a computer‐based decision support tool for foreign investors and contractors in evaluating beforehand the business feasibility of entering the Chinese housing market. Būsto statybos Kinijoje strategijų vertinimas taikant neapibrėžtų aibių teoriją Santrauka Kinijos būsto rinkai būdinga didelė paklausa ir didelis pelno potencialas. Tačiau užsienio investuotojai vis dar susiduria su didele rizika, nes nėra susipažinę su šios milžiniškos rinkos painiava. Šiame straipsnyje aptariama prekyba būstu Kinijos Liaudies Respublikoje, taikant neapibrežtų aibių (Fuzzy Logic) irDelfimetodus prognozuojamas prekybos efektyvumas Kinijos būsto rinkoje. Be to, darbe pristatomas loginiu elementu IR/ARBA pagrįstas modelis. Jis taikomas ekspertines žinias konvertuojant į reikiamas sprendimų, susijusių su prekybos būstu sėkmeė prognozavimu, priėmimo taisykles. Loginio elemento modelis naudingas analizuojant taisyklę “jei…, tai..”, taip pat stebint modelio kūrimo ir taisymo procesus bei prižiūrint modelį vėlesniais jo naudojimo etapais. Aprašytą modelį kaip kompiuterinį sprendimų paramos įrankį gali taikyti užsienio investuotojai ir rangovai, iš anksto vertinantys verslo įžengimo į Kinijos būsto rinką galimybes. First Published online: 18 Oct 2010

The importance of research and development (R&D) for business sustainability have gained increasing interests, especially in the high-tech sector. However, the efforts of R&D might cause complex and mixed impacts on the financial results considering the associated expenses. Thus, this study aims to examine how R&D efforts may influence business to improve its financial performance considering the dual objectives: the gross and the net profitability. This research integrates a rough-set-based soft computing technique and multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods to explore this complex and yet valuable issue. A group of public listed companies from Taiwan, all in the semiconductor sector, is analyzed as a case study. More than 30 variables are considered, and the adopted soft computing technique retrieves 14 core attributes—for the dual profitability objectives—to form the evaluation model. The importance of R&D for pursuing superior financial prospects is confirmed, and the empirical case demonstrates how to guide an individual company to plan for improvements to achieve its long-term sustainability by this hybrid approach.

Research and development (R&D) is inherently important to high-tech industry, such as semiconductor companies. However, the complex and ambiguous relationship between R&D and the subsequent financial performance varies and is still underexplored. Previous studies based on statistical analyses are not able to provide individual guidance considering the specific circumstance/status of a company. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the inherent patterns or rules — by a two-stage soft computing model — to guide semiconductor companies to improve its financial performance, considering R&D and the other factors. This research uses a group of semiconductor companies in Taiwan as an empirical case, and the research period ranges from 2006 to 2013. Compare with the conventional discriminant analysis approach, the obtained decision rules from the proposed rule-based analytic model shows superior results that may classify the financial performance of semiconductor companies by a set of financial and R&D indicators with 75% accuracy in average. In addition, we also show how to use the retrieved knowledge (i.e., rules) to guide a real company to improve its performance in the future. The findings contribute to the understanding of R&D influences to the financial performance of semiconductor companies with managerial implications in practice.

The trends of the green supply chain are attributed to pressures from the environment and from customers. Green innovation is a practice for creating competitive advantage in sustainable development. To keep up with the changing business environment, the construction industry needs an appropriate assessment tool to examine the intrinsic and extrinsic effects regarding corporate competitive advantage. From the viewpoint of energy and environmental protection, this study combines four scientific methodologies to develop an assessment model for the green innovation of contractors. System dynamics can be used to estimate the future trends for the overall industrial structure and is useful in predicting competitive advantage in the industry. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and utility theory focus on the customer’s attitude toward risk and are useful for comprehending changes in objective requirements in the environment. Fuzzy logic can simplify complicated intrinsic and extrinsic factors and express them with a number or ratio that is easy to understand. The proposed assessment model can be used as a reference to guide the government in examining the public constructions that qualified green contractors participate in. Additionally, the assessment model serves an indicator of relative competitiveness that can help the general contractor and subcontractor to evaluate themselves and further green innovations.

Project businesses and project-based strategic alliances have become an innovative business model to obtain synergistic competitiveness in the highly competitive market. However, in the practices of the alliances, conflicts and bargaining between team members are frequently occurred, while companies are seeking to maximize their own profits in the course of executing the cooperative project. Thus, to satisfy both parties, a bargaining decision support model is of great necessity for estimating the acceptable rewards of the cooperative parties which is crucial for enhancing the possibility of reaching a win-win agreement in the bargaining. In this paper, we develop a sequential bargaining model to support strategic bargaining decisions. The model, based on Dynamics Game Theory, can estimate acceptable prices for participants in accordance with each party's costs and needs for the project's revenue. Since the partner's qualification and reputation constitute certain risks of the alliance, the alliance risk discount factors are additionally considered in the proposed model by incorporating fuzzy sets and utility-based assessment methods. The integrated model enables strategic-alliance companies to estimate their bargaining positions in different cases and select proper bargaining strategies in a systematic and rational manner, so as to maintain their right businesses.

As today's financial market is highly dynamics and comprised of complex factors, few robust models are available for supporting value investors and most of the investment decisions are mainly relied on the judgments of senior investment experts. Among accounting-based fundamental analysis, F-Score system has been a widely accepted model for value investing [1]. F-Score system proposed nine fundamental signals to measure three aspects of a firm's financial conditions: (1) profitability, (2) financial leverage/ liquidity, and (3) operating efficiency. However, the manner which is based on historical financial information would face the difficulty of acquiring implicit knowledge of senior investment experts and accumulating knowledge. To improve the applicability of F-Score system, this research integrates fuzzy set theory and analytic network process (ANP) to propose an innovative model for distinguishing strong financial prospect stocks among high book-to-market (B/M) stocks. Five firms ranked top 20% B/M ratio were benchmarked to test the Fuzzy-ANP model. The practicability of the proposed model is verified by real stocks' data collected from April 2008 to December 2009 in Taiwan.