Location Selection of High-tech Manufacturing Firms by a Fuzzy Analytic Network Process: A Case Study of Taiwan High-tech Industry.

The high-tech industry has great potentials in global economy and plays an important driving force in global manufacturing operations. However, high-tech firms sometimes have to deal with high-risk potentials such as limitation of human resources, powerful competitors, and high ratio of natural disasters. An alternative solution to overcome these issues is to seek a new place for locating manufacturing plants. In addition, the selection of the new location is a form of business expansion outside origin location which can strengthen firm's position at the global level. This study presents a novel framework of location selection using fuzzy analytic network process to determine prospective manufacturing location and applies to Taiwan hi-tech firms in selecting China regions as the research subject. We conduct survey to 16 firms which are categorized into two groups (small-medium and large firms). Following our proposed location selection framework, we conclude that the two groups have different priorities of location determinants and location ranks. In choosing a location, small-medium firms prioritize cost rather than regulation and community, while large firms prioritize regulation rather than cost and community. In terms of location selection, both groups are prioritizing Central-Western China as their first choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]