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Evaluation and selection of eco-innovation strategies is a significant and complex strategic decision, and despite the relevance and interest in the field of eco-innovation, the area of eco-innovation strategies has not been explored in depth in the scientific literature. Therefore, in this study, we propose an integrated approach to evaluating eco-innovation strategies from the perspective of strategic green transformation that helps decision-makers evaluate and select eco-innovation strategy aiming to achieve a competitive advantage. For this study, we adopted a validated multi-criteria decision-making methodology (MCDM) by combining Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). The reliability of the proposed framework was tested and applied in the context of the Lithuanian furniture industry. This study offers three contributions and provides a comprehensive and profound insights into eco-innovation strategies. First, this study conceptualizes eco-innovation strategy from the perspective of strategic green transformation and proposed a novel definition and classification of eco-innovation strategies leading to competitive advantage. Second, this study proposes a novel approach to the evaluation of eco-innovation strategies taking into account micro-, meso-, and macro-level environmental factors. Third, the findings of this study provide implications for scholars and decision-makers in the field of eco-innovation strategy and set an agenda for future research.
ABSTRACT
Many nations have suffered the catastrophe of COVID-19, and one of the first countries affected by the pandemic was Iran; all industries and individuals have been adversely affected by the pandemic. Health care systems and patients' conditions, in particular, were disrupted due to canceling elective surgery. To put it more sharply, a delay in performing elective surgery may potentially impact patients' survival and the quality of their lives. To cope with the new situation, in the first stage, the Clean Hospital strategy was proposed in order to minimize the effects of this pandemic on elective surgical services. The mentioned strategy is a try to provide a solution and resume elective surgeries in the pandemic period. In the second stage, panel discussion, Delphi method, and the best-worst method (BWM) were employed to prioritize the factors that inhibit Coronavirus transmission. The proposed strategy and the results of this study could be used by policymakers and health departments to resume elective surgeries and control the infection to maintain a hospital or a section of it clear. The overall result of the study showed that the most important Covid-19 prevention factors in Clean Hospitals were personal protection (w = 0.212), screening checklist (w = 0.182), and check body temperature (w = 0.126), respectively (C1 > C2 > C3). According to the financial, time, and human resource limitations, first, resources were allocated to higher priority criteria, and in order of priority, all items (C1, C2, ., C9) were used in the Clean hospital strategy.
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The entire world is currently fighting the severe and dangerous pandemic COVID-19, which is causing bodily suffering and mental distress due to the rapidly increasing number of infected patients and deaths worldwide. Many COVID-19 treatments are going on in India, and some treatments are under development for these patients. But, treatment selection for the COVID-19 patients is challenging in the present situation. Through the multi-criteria decision-making technique, they can select the COVID-19 treatments easily. Therefore, we have developed an MCDM technique to select COVID-19 treatments in India. This paper invented the value and ambiguity of bipolar fuzzy (BF) numbers. Additionally, some fundamental theorems and properties of BF-numbers are studied. A novel positive and negative interpreter ranking index of BF numbers has been introduced. In the present day, most human decision-making relies heavily on bipolar fuzzy information. Hence, we developed an MCDM technique with bipolar fuzzy details. A comprehensive range of human decisions for selecting COVID-19 treatments is based on positive and negative double-sided or bipolar judgemental thinking. To select COVID-19 treatments in India, we have applied the proposed MCDM technique with BTrF information. Moreover, to demonstrate the applicability of our proposed MCDM method, we have considered a numerical example with BF data. Finally, we give the comparison study to show the effectiveness of our proposed MCDM method with other existing decision-making methods.
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The breakout of the pandemic COVID-19 has affected numerous countries and territories worldwide. As COVID-19 specific medicines yet to be invented, at present the treatment is case specific, hence identification and evaluation of different prevalent treatment options based on various criteria and attributes are very important not only from the point of view of present pandemic but also for futuristic pandemic preparedness. The present study focuses on identifying, evaluation and ranking of treatment options using Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). In this regard, the existing literature, doctors and scientist were interviewed to know the current treatment options in vogue and the scale of their importance with respect to the criteria. The criteria taken are side effect, regime cost, treatment duration, plasma stability, plasma turnover, time of suppression, ease of application, drug-drug interaction, compliance, fever, pneumonia, intensive care, organ failure, macrophage activation syndrome, hemophagocytic syndrome, pregnancy, kidney problem, age. This study extended Hesitant Fuzzy Set (HFS) to Generalized Hesitant Fuzzy Sets (GHFS). Generalized Hesitant Pentagonal Fuzzy Number (GHPFN) is developed. The properties of GHPFN are demonstrated. Two types of GHPFN has been described. The GHPFN (2nd type) along with MCDM tool Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) has been applied to rank the treatment options. The result of the study ranked 'Hydroxychloroquine' as the first alternative followed by, 'Plasma Exchange', 'Tocilizumab', 'Remdesivir' and 'Favipravir'. To check the robustness and steadiness of the proposed methodology, comparative analysis and sensitivity analysis has been conducted.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyday life in societies around the world. One of the most severe consequences has been the social isolation imposed by this extremely contagious disease. In this context, many people began looking for a pet for the first time. In Brazil, for instance, the pet sector increased its financial returns in 2020. In addition, companies that produce pet foods have experienced problems with the supply of materials. Supply chain disruption is a problem faced by many different organizations during this time of crisis. This study, therefore, investigated the supply of raw materials stored in the silos and tanks of a large company. This company have operations in 80 countries across the world and produces different products, including pet food. Thirteen raw materials used to produce pet food were con-sidered. In addition, eight criteria of the company's supply process were identified and explored. Moreover, the Flexible and Interactive Tradeoff (FITradeoff) method, which is a Multiple Criteria Decision Mak-ing/Aiding (MCDM/A) method, was applied to rank the raw materials based on supply difficulty. In terms of supply criticality, the order of materials was established from less critical to most critical. These results can be used by companies to better plan the receipt of these materials to reduce the risk of supply chain-related disruptions and propose better ways to distribute activities between planners to help them in their daily management. © 2023 Brazilian Operations Research Society.
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The outbreak of coronavirus has posed a significant threat to all sectors of life. Therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged a concerted effort to develop an effective vaccine to limit the spread of this virus among the population. Many vaccines have been produced in several countries in accordance with specified criteria. This study evaluated these vaccines using a variety of criteria. However, conflicting criteria provided a significant obstacle during the appraisal process. This article aims to evaluate and compare the COVID-19 vaccines currently licensed for emergency use worldwide. This study applied a novel hybrid multi-criteria decision approach by integrating the entropy method and MOORA technique to select the optimum vaccine. The methodology is down into two steps: 1) calculating weights for seven criteria, and 2) calculating the rank of eight COVID-19 vaccines. The findings showed that Johnson and Johnson vaccine is the best alternative, while the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the worst. The study's implications helped countries to select the best vaccines for immunizing people and preventing the virus spread among them. © 2023, International Organization on 'Technical and Physical Problems of Engineering'. All rights reserved.
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The spread of COVID-19 across the world, triggered multiple stresses among doctors working tirelessly round the clock to attend sick patients. Doctors had to cope with new environment thereby developing anxiety and fear. The current paper identifies and explores the stress intensity developed among doctors with the aid of multi-criteria decision analysis in doctors working in private and government hospitals of India during COVID-19. After identification of numerous stresses through questionnaire, weights are assigned to common most stress factors by employing AHP method. Furthermore, comparative analysis and prioritization of stress factors is performed with the aid of TOPSIS. The current combined system is a quantitative analysis furnished to establish the feasibility of the methods in weighing and MCDM in stress assessment. This study identifies and predicts the foremost stress factor which needs to be addressed by hospital management to keep doctors with a stable and fresh mindset. This research further establishes a proper MCDM technique which need to be applied in all hospital to regulate and distribute doctors work load without overloading them. Psychological stress is the foremost type of stress reported by multiple doctors. Results showed that lack of balance among personal and professional life followed by lack of communication is highly related problem in doctors in such adverse events.
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The best-worst method (BWM) and its variations have been widely utilized in decision making problems since 2015. During the COVID-19 pandemic, several problems occurred considering the decision making related to legislative, health system, precautions, transportation, and economic decisions. The aim of this paper is to analyze the state-of the-art survey of BWM applications for the problem related to COVID-19. To do so, a bibliographic analysis of literature is conducted. "COVID-19" and "best-worst method" are searched in the Scopus database as keywords, and 40 studies out of 47 studies are taken into consideration. Keywords and s of these studies are analyzed with the N-grams approach and VOSviewer software. In addition, a descriptive analysis is done focusing on the authors' information and journals. The descriptive analysis demonstrates the topics in the retrieved studies comprehend COVID-19 and BWM with sustainable development goals, healthcare technology, supply chain, risk management, energy consumption, and logistics topics. The descriptive analysis part reveals that supply chain, service quality, social sustainability, supplier selection, sustainable development, green supply, and energy usage are the main topics in the considered literature.
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It often occurs that after a multi-criteria decision is made, the decision maker becomes unsure as to whether they have made the best decision. This doubt arises because the criteria being considered do not carry the same weightings. This instability is relevant to the consideration of possible future events, such as a possible recession following the COVID-19 outbreak, which may affect the criteria weightings. The stratified multi-criteria decision-making method (SMCDM) has been proposed to address this issue. This method suggests the consideration of a number of states in the decision-making process. In each state, the weightings of the criteria are different depending on which event or which combination of events are being considered. The states are associated with transition probabilities that are used to compute the optimal weightings of the criteria. This paper suggests approaches to compute the transition probabilities. Moreover, the consideration of several events in SMCDM results in a great number of states and this would be a time consuming and error prone process. Hence, the incremental enlargement characteristic of the concept of stratification (CST) is added to SMCDM in order to reduce the large numbers of states to a manageable quantity. IEEE
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Online education has been still a common way for teaching and learning in the post epidemic era. However, the related research on service quality for the online Yue kiln celadon art education industry is still a vital research gap during this period. Thus, a hybrid method of FANP and GRA is proposed in this study to analyse and evaluate the key factors for providing and maintaining high service quality of online Yue kiln celadon art education industry in the post coronavirus era. In this research, whether in the model of FANP and GRA, factors such as safety mechanism of transaction and education, personnel quality, and the ability of customer need handling are essential conditions for providing excellent service quality in the post-COVID-19 era. The main contribution of this study is to propose an integrated method of FANP and GRA to calculate and rank potential solutions of online Yue kiln celadon art education service quality in the post-COVID-19 era under fuzzy environment and discrete conditions. Finally, the research findings of this study have a guiding role, thereby becoming a guide for the industries related to online Yue kiln celadon art education to maintain good service quality in similar scenarios in the future. © 2023 by the authors.
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This study has a novel approach to capture the attitude of Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) consumers towards Packaging Influenced Purchase (PIP) during the Covid-19 crisis. Over the years, BoPs consumers have established themselves as an emerging market with ample growth and opportunities. The authors suggested a Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) based framework to assist marketers in targeting both urban and rural BoP consumers regarding PIP. Packaging elements and influence of family, extended family, peers have been included in the framework for gaining in-depth understanding. With a sample size of 100 from West Bengal, this focus group-based study can fulfil the BoP literature's existing prominent research gap. Results indicate the difference in attitude for urban and rural BoPs towards PIP during this crisis. The fusion of MCDM based approach and relevant machine learning-based technique aims to assist marketers in identifying, formulating, and redefining an action plan.
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The rapid changes in the behavior of Egyptian online consumers, influenced by the increasing adoption of e-commerce since the COVID-19 pandemic, especially shopping online apparel, have made it essential for online fashion retailers to identify criteria that are crucial for their growth. This research attempts to discover the main factors and sub-factors which influence the preference of consumers for online fashion e-stores. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology was used to determine the criteria with their weights and prioritized. The study started off by conducting a thorough literature review in electronic retail to identify the significant elements (keys) mentioned in earlier studies. Five main factors and twenty sub-factors were identified based on these studies, in addition to, some Egyptian experts' views from the online fashion field. The AHP results revealed that the "website design” is the most influential on consumers and especially navigation, and responsiveness sub-factors. The website facilities came in the second priority with multi-payment methods and search engine as sub-factors. The third factor in importance was post-order services with order tracking and customer support sub-factors. The results reveal significant insights that can be adopted by online retailers of fashion for improving their e-stores' performance according to the relative importance of factors and can be used as cost-effective way by managing their resources efficiently. Besides, the results contribute in the current insights of the existing literature on factors that influence online consumer preferences, where research tends to be scarce especially to online fashion field in Egypt. © 2023, Success Culture Press. All rights reserved.
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The tourism industry has developed rapidly in recent decades. This boom has led to overtourism in some tourist areas of Spain. The COVID-19, on the other hand, has paralysed the sector and must be reactivated without reproducing past errors. Overtourism remains open to subjective interpretations due to the paucity of precise measurements. This emanates from the fact that overtourism lacks a realistic set of indicators to quantitatively measure its negative impact. The main objective of this paper is to provide a set of indicators that allow reviewing and redirecting decision-making at the business and political levels. An integrated MCDM approach has been applied namely the CRITIC method for calculating the weights of the indicators, and the VIKOR method for assessing the alternatives. The case study of Spain provides useful insights, and the obtained results demonstrated that the economic indicators hinder sustainable development and contribute to worsening the tourist attitude. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
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The blended educational method has become a common way of teaching and learning in the post-COVID-19 era. However, the related research on the selection model for the blended design teaching service quality solution is still an important research gap during this period. Therefore, this study proposed a hybrid method of fuzzy analytic network process (FANP) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to analyse the dimensions, indicators and alternatives of blended design teaching service quality. As for the findings of this research, the dimension of assurance is the most vital factor, followed by responsiveness, reliability and empathy. Meanwhile, this research discovered that the top three significant alternatives are "Employees are trustworthy”, "Safe transaction mechanism and environment” and "Personalised needs of customers”. Also, we found that dimensions utilised to evaluate the quality of education service are similar whether in the post COVID-19 era, in the COVID-19 epidemic or prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The main contribution of this study is to establish a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model for the ranking of the blended design teaching service quality index and solution under a fuzzy environment. Finally, the research findings of this study have a guiding role, thereby becoming a guide for the industries related to hybrid design education to maintain good service quality in similar scenarios in the future. © 2023 by the authors.
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This research article proposes the service quality measures for four automotive lead logistics providers (LLPs) to improve the parts export business based at emerging markets such as India, China and Thailand. These measures have emerged from the pre-COVID-19 perception study on service quality from 117 global automotive professionals from auto original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework and questionnaire survey method was applied. It concludes with the results of different methods such as service quality (SERVQUAL), importance-performance analysis (IPA) and improvement factor (IF), to explain the significance of export business and where to improve their service quality post-COVID-19. The result shows that the service quality factors of IPA model had wide-ranging reflection for LLPs to focus in comparison with SERVQUAL and IF to gauge the perception of automotive OEMs concerning the service quality of LLPs in the industry post-COVID-19. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted global supply chain managers to reassess their operations. Developing a green supply chain requires successfully integrating environmental responsibility principles and benchmarks into supply chain management practices. In the past, there have been few studies on the most effective strategies for reducing the environmental impact of supply chains and improving their sustainability. This study used the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method to construct a structural model evaluation system of the green supply chain management (GSCM) to evaluate the interdependent relationships among dimensions and criteria. A GSCM evaluation system was created after using the DEMATEL-based ANP (DANP) to convert the GSCM evaluation indicators and impact factors into degrees of importance. This study explores the obstacles and challenges that organizations face when implementing GSCM practices and how these challenges can be overcome. The results found that organizational changes had the most significant impact, given that they would also improve the other three dimensions. Among the 16 evaluation criteria, resource allocation and market expansion optimization were the most important. Based on these findings, the study proposed specific improvement strategies that corporations and other stakeholders could use to adopt GSCM practices. © 2023 by the authors.
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A mobile application (app) recommender system needs to support both developers and users. Existing recommender systems in the literature are based on single-criterion analysis, which is insufficient for producing better recommendations. Moreover, recommendations do not reflect the user's perspectives. To address these issues, in this paper, we present a Multi-Criteria Mobile App Recommender System (MCMARS) that assists developers in improving their apps and recommends the top-performing apps to users. We define the performance score of an app based on four criteria attributes: risk assessment score, functionality score, user rating, and the app's memory size. We define the risk assessment score for each app using multi-perspective analysis and the functionality score by assigning preference weights to the services of apps in the same category. We evaluate optimal weights of the criteria by integrating the entropy method and the extended Best-Worst method (BWM) using Hesitant-Triangular-Fuzzy information with group-decisions. Finally, the TOPSIS uses these weights to assess the app's performance. To validate our MCMARS, we prepared a dataset of 124 government-approved COVID-19 Android apps from 80 countries and made it available on GitHub for the research community. Finally, we perform a fine-grained analysis of the app's performance based on the criteria attributes that help the developers to improve their apps. The experimental results show that two independent attributes, "risk assessment score” and "functionality score”, significantly measure the app's performance. According to our findings, only 12.5% of the apps in the experimental dataset provide high-performance, high-functionality, and low-risk. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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PurposeMany organizations failed to generate profits after investing considerable money and time in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. This study, therefore, sought to identify the challenges encountered by pharmaceutical firms during the post-implementation of ERP systems.Design/methodology/approachA case-based study followed by general survey-based research was carried out in pharmaceutical firms to determine the critical post-implementation challenges of ERP systems. DANP (DEMATEL-based ANP) and Wilcoxon Signed Rank test were used to find the causal/critical challenges and rank them.FindingsAfter analyzing a pharmaceutical case company and conducting a general survey among pharmaceutical companies, statistical analysis was performed to identify the most significant challenges, namely, "Inefficient troubleshooting mechanism”, "Lack of training during post-implementation stage” and "Difficulty in identifying invalid data when entered into the ERP system”. Furthermore, organization-wide challenges are considered to be the most important.Practical implicationsThe paper identifies the challenges faced during the post-implementation phase of ERP systems. This work brings out the issues with ERP systems' performance after their implementation, which is related to the quality of the ERP systems. This work will support the risk identification and mitigation during ERP implementation to eradicate the problems after its implementation. This work may trigger the ERP system developers to improve its features and performance for better manufacturing and supply chain management system in pharmaceutical firms.Originality/valueThis study is uniquely conducted in pharmaceutical firms to study the benefits and challenges of adopted ERP systems. A pilot case study served as the foundation for the generalizability of other pharmaceutical firms' findings through a non-parametric test.
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Digital learning is a broad umbrella of any form of learning incorporating novel digital technology aspects in teaching and assessment to facilitate learning and engage students. Most education settings have moved from face–to–face to e-learning platforms worldwide ever since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Assessment of the efficiency of digital learning is essential, and assessment criteria may take several forms. Digital learning effectiveness assessment has received a significant amount of attention and work;nevertheless, a generalized quantitative evaluation model that considers the inter-affected link among criteria and the uncertainty of personal perception simultaneously is still absent. In this study, the hybrid MCDM model that was suggested handles the independent relations of assessment criteria with factor analysis, and it addresses the dependency relations of assessment via the use of AHP. The AHP and neutrosophic integral approaches are used for the purpose of creating synthetic usefulness in line with the environment of subjective perception. This quantitative research study explores students' readiness to continue utilizing e-learning while measuring satisfaction levels with the e-learning system among higher education students in the Gulf area. Moreover, students' behavior intention is measured here. Descriptive analysis was opted to achieve the aim of the study. Data analysis demonstrated that higher education students showed medium to high readiness levels towards e-learning and were identified with a medium level of satisfaction with the e-learning system. Moreover, students demonstrated a high intent to utilize the e-learning platform in case of offering parallel e-learning courses in the future. © 2023, American Scientific Publishing Group (ASPG). All rights reserved.
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MSME area adds to business age at a low capital expense contrasted with enormous businesses. It helps in the sustainable industrialization of metropolitan and country zones, decreases provincial irregularity, and guarantees evenhanded conveyance of pay and abundance. This examination paper talks about the different issues of financing for miniature, little, and medium undertakings during and post COVID-19. Through the writing survey, plainly money is a basic device for the development and improvement of SMEs. The challenges of sustainable MSMEs are money, policies, environmental regulation, supply chain, etc., but during and post COVID-19, problems and challenges are tackling financial issues of companies, restart supply chain management, new startups, etc. Although government endeavors have been made for the smooth progression of credit to MSMEs areas, MSMEs require more research. Hence, an attempt is made to prioritize challenges of MSMEs during and post COVID-19. Copyright © 2022, IGI Global.