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Firms operating in the service sector must have a dynamic structure to be competitive in a volatile business environment. The dynamic structure brings skilled employees and talented managers together to create effective strategies for global competition. In traditional retail service companies, the majority of the staff interacts intensively with the clients and engaged in advanced facilities. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the performance results of the banks in Turkey based on the level of customer service and satisfaction within an interdisciplinary frame.

The fuzzy VIKOR and AHP method has been applied to analyse the performance levels of Turkish banks registered in Borsa Istanbul. In order to obtain the dynamics of data, the customer satisfaction competencies have been identified as the reference points for experts.

The empirical results confirm that the performance results of the banks vary based on customer satisfaction level and ownership types. The fundamental conclusion clarifies the facilities of the state-owned banks are suitable for meeting customer expectations, private bank's performance level is higher than foreign banks, foreign banks have the weakest performance results based on customer satisfaction level with a negative financial outcomes in local countries and finally, state-owned banks with their strong assets serve the customers in expected manner.

Generating sales revenue based on effective customer services and quality improvement requires prompt response to changing competitive conditions and customer demands. Effective customer service in performance evaluation process has a strategic role in adopting competitive strategies. The originality of the study is to evaluate the performance results of the customer satisfaction using the hybrid approach under the fuzzy environment.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) technique to determine the priority of renewable power plants construction conceding technical, economic, social, political and environmental aspects.

First, a comprehensive set of 5 main criteria of technical, economic, social, political and environmental are considered for renewable power plants construction, each including 5 sub-criteria (a total of 25 sub-criteria). Then, the analytic hierarchy process method is used to determine the weight of the criteria. Finally, a new MCDM technique proposed to prioritize the construction of renewable power plants, named TOPKOR. To demonstrate the capability of the proposed method, a case study is conducted in which six types of renewable power plants are evaluated.

Comparison results of the main criteria weights show that the “economic” [0.403], “environmental” [0.296] and “technical” [0.17] aspects have the highest importance, respectively. The results also show that solar, hydroelectric and wave and tidal power plants have the highest priority for construction, respectively.

The result of this research could be useful for related decision makers in construction of the renewable power plants to have a comprehensive set of criteria in technical, economic, social, political and environmental aspects in their decision process.

This research provides a comprehensive set of criteria and sub-criteria for prioritizing the renewable power plants. Moreover, a new hybrid MCDM technique is introduced for prioritizing the construction of power plants.

This paper aims to propose a hybrid multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) technique for performance evaluation of banks in which the banks are assessed and ranked according to the criteria of the balanced scorecard (BSC) methodology and corporate social responsibility (CSR) views.

To clarify the performance of the proposed model, the MCDM technique was implemented in four banks in Iran as a pilot. First, proper criteria for banking industry are identified considering BSC and CSR. Consequently, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and modified digital logic (MDL) techniques are used to determine the weights of criteria. The banks are ranked by fuzzy TOPSIS (FTOPSIS) and fuzzy VIKOR (FVIKOR). Using a combination of these techniques, four methods, namely, AHP-FTOPSIS, AHP-FVIKOR, MDL-FTOPSIS and MDL-FVIKOR, are obtained, each of which provides a different set of rankings for banks. Eventually, the obtained ranks are integrated using the Copeland method.

The results showed that the return on investment, debt ratio and lower energy consumption criteria are the most important, and enhancement of brand value, increasing customer loyalty and environmental care criteria have the lowest percentage of importance. Also, the final bank ranking is determined by the proposed method.

This paper identifies 6 criteria and 25 sub-criteria for evaluating the banks considering BSC and CSR viewpoints including some new sub-criteria that has not been considered before. Moreover, these hybrid approaches and especially MDL techniques have not been used by previous researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to report a study on the application of interpretative structural modelling (ISM) integrated with multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques for enabling the sustainability supplier selection.

In this paper, two approaches of hybrid MCDM methods are followed and the selection of sustainable supplier was based on the comparative results obtained from both the methods. The first hybrid approach is ISM – analytic network process (ANP) – ELimination and Et Choice Translating REality (ELECTRE II) and the second hybrid approach is ISM – ANP – Vlse Kriterijumska Optimizacija Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR). ISM was used to identify the inter relationship between the criteria. Inter-relationship of criteria obtained from ISM will serve as an input for ANP. The weights obtained from ANP will be used in ELECTRE II and VIKOR. ELECTRE II is an outranking method, whereas VIKOR is a compromise ranking method; comparison of both the methods was carried out in this study.

In this study, two modules ISM–ANP – ELECTRE and ISM–ANP – VIKOR were compared for the problem of sustainable supplier selection. ELECTRE results with a single solution showed that Supplier 2 can be selected as the best supplier; VIKOR result shows that Supplier 1 and Supplier 2 can be selected as the best suppliers.

The selection of sustainable supplier considering the interrelationship of criteria using ISM and ranking the alternatives using compromise and outranking techniques was found to be original and novel contribution of the author.

This study aims to cover issues regarding traveling to a tourist destination which has seen war and terrorism. These problems can be addressed altogether, as they are interrelated. Based on tourists’ opinions, this paper aims to focus on measures or steps that can be taken to ensure changing their perceptions about a certain destination.

This study targets tourism experts for their opinions regarding the measures most necessary to change the perceptions of tourists. Their opinions were extracted through a questionnaire based on three criteria with four alternatives. Furthermore, raw data extracted are studied using the Fuzzy-VIKOR technique to rank the alternatives in order of importance. Moreover, the questionnaire also aims to know the perception of participants by asking them what would make them trust a destination with a history of terrorism.

The problems captivate the attention of government, guiding them to ensure that they need to focus more on physical security of tourists if they expect tourism industry to thrive. It was found that the steps needed to be taken are in the areas of international trade, cultural exchange programs and social media advertising.

Research based on improving tourist perception of Pakistan to develop Pakistan as a tourist destination is scarce. The study takes four different alternatives into account for image recovery and based on those alternatives, it provides a unique solution to the government in this regard with the necessary steps they need to take and attempts to help the government ensure tourism expansion in the country.

The analyze phase of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) project is an important phase where the project heads and organizational directors need to select the critical issues for further improvements. The present work is primarily focused on analyze phase of LSS project to prioritize the critical to quality (CTQ) in a particular case industry.

The CTQ prioritization is being done based on the five evaluation criteria found from the literature. The weights of the criteria are determined through the modified digital logic (MDL) method. The identified CTQs in assembly section of case industry have been ranked through the gray relational analysis (GRA) under fuzzy environment. The results of the study have been validated using fuzzy VlseKriterijumska Optimisacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR).

It is found that the “cost” criterion is the most significant among other criteria with MDL weight of 0.3. Through fuzzy-GRA, out of ten identified CTQs, non-availability of rack system is found to be the most critical issue in assembly section of case industry. The perceptions of industrial manager and production head of case industry are strongly in favor of the obtained results and have implemented the suggested solutions.

To sustain in the competitive environment and produce quality product at right time, organizations need to control their CTQs as per their criticality. For this, the decision-making becomes quite complex to select the most critical factors because of the fascinating nature of various criteria and sub-criteria. The present study is the first attempt that has implemented the multi-criteria decision-making approach in analyze phase of LSS project.

Due to the important role of strategic human resources in fulfilling the main objectives of organizations on the one hand and the necessity of having suitable functional strategies in place to operationalize the developmental programs on the other hand, this study aims to identify the factors and sub-factors of developmental programs and their priorities as well as the relationship and interactions of the identified criteria in human capital developmental programs through a hybrid fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory –analytic network process approach. Also, the rank of functional strategies to achieve these human resource developmental programs is determined using fuzzy VIsekriterijumska Optimizacija I KOmpromisno Resenje (VIKOR) technique.

Through an in-depth review of the relevant literature, the most important criteria and sub-criteria were determined. Then, a questionnaire was designed and distributed among 20 top managers and experts of the surveyed bank. Using geometric mean, the criteria were screened. In the next step, the second pairwise questionnaire was designed and distributed among eight experts, to determine the relations and interrelations among these factors their relevant sub-factors and prioritize them. Finally, using the third designed questionnaire and fuzzy, VIKOR (FVIKOR) technique the ranks of functional strategies were determined.

Analysis of the results showed that “future wellness and retirement” is the most influential factor and the “retention” factor is the most permeable factor. Also, human capital planning is the most important factor of this department’s developmental programs in achieving its strategic objectives. Factors “recruiting and hiring,” “retention,” “empowerment” and “future wellness and retirement” were ranked second to fifth, respectively. Finally, the application of the FVIKOR technique revealed that “enhancement and improvement of incentive systems” is the best functional strategy to achieve the developmental plans of the human capital department.

One of the limitations of this study is the generalizability of the findings, which may be limited by the single case study method used.

This study presents a comprehensive and effective tool which could specifically help policymakers and top managers of the survey company and other managers of the banking sector in general, to use a quantitative approach toward identification and prioritizations of the determinants factors of the human capital developmental programs toward achieving functional strategic objectives to enhance the satisfaction of their internal customer as the most important asset of their organizations which might lead to the increased external customer satisfaction and, subsequently, increased competitive advantage.

To the best knowledge of the authors, this is one the first studies of its kind which attempts through a hybrid fuzzy analytical network process and fuzzy DEMATEL approach, presents a structural network model to examine the interrelationships among the human capital developmental programs and prioritizes them, also simultaneously rank the functional strategies toward achieving these programs using FVIKOR technique.

The food industry is crucial in delivering healthy products for life saving of the society. The identification of key barriers of knowledge management (KM) is desired to enhance the sustainability of the industry. KM has been seen as a part of sustainable development by reducing the bullwhip effect in the entire supply chain. The core objective of the existing research is to prioritize the essential factors of KM adoption in sustainable supply chain (SSC) based on fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) method.

In order to fulfill objectives of this study, an extensive review of literature and a questionnaire-based field visits were conducted. A total of five major barriers categories and 22 sub-barriers categories were identified in food sector of Pakistan using experts' inputs. This study employed fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP).

Managerial barriers, innovation and technological barriers categories are found to be highly prioritized among others. Further, the sensitivity analysis is applied to check the incremental changes of ranked barriers. This prioritization of barriers and incremental changes in them is expected to serve food sector for long-term sustainability and competitive advantage for importers and exporters. Finally, the findings of this research are very helpful for industrial experts, practitioners, consultants and government officials in effectively developing policies regarding KM adoption in line with sustainable goals.

The present work is conducted in the Pakistani context; however, the benchmark model may be tested and applied to other developing countries to compare the outcomes. For further research, the identified barriers may also be evaluated to establish their inter-relationships, using ISM, DEMATEL, ANP, etc. Similarly, the results of this study can also be compared with that of other fuzzy multi-criteria techniques like fuzzy TOPSIS, fuzzy VIKOR, fuzzy ELECTRE, fuzzy PROMETHEE, or fuzzy VIKOR.

This research study can facilitate policymakers, government bodies, stakeholders and supply chain professionals to recognize the key barriers they may encounter in adopting KM practices in their SSC. Additionally, this work helps managers to evaluate the identified barriers by computing their relative importance in adopting KM practices at managerial levels like strategically, tactically and operationally activities in business. This study also facilitates industrial management in formulating policies and action plans in case of implementation, eliminating the barriers in adoption of KM, and SSC successfully.

Few research studies were conducted on KM adoption in industries of China, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, but due to workforce diversity these industries have dissimilar views of experts about KM adoption. This study significantly contributed to fill the existing literature gap for prioritization of key barriers against KM implementation in Pakistani context.

This paper aims to examine and compare extant literature on the application of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques in humanitarian operations (HOs) and humanitarian supply chains (HSCs). It identifies the status of existing research in the field and suggests a roadmap for academicians to undertake further research in HOs and HSCs using MCDM techniques.

The paper systematically reviews the research on MCDM applications in HO and HSC domains from 2011 to 2022, as the field gained traction post-2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami phenomena. In the first step, an exhaustive search for journal articles is conducted using 48 keyword searches. To ensure quality, only those articles published in journals featuring in the first quartile of the Scimago Journal Ranking were selected. A total of 103 peer-reviewed articles were selected for the review and then segregated into different categories for analysis.

The paper highlights insufficient high-quality research in HOs that utilizes MCDM methods. It proposes a roadmap for scholars to enhance the research outcomes by advocating adopting mixed methods. The analysis of various studies revealed a notable absence of contextual reference. A contextual mind map specific to HOs has been developed to assist future research endeavors. This resource can guide researchers in determining the appropriate contextual framework for their studies.

This paper will help practitioners understand the research carried out in the field. The aspiring researchers will identify the gap in the extant research and work on future research directions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first literature review on applying MCDM in HOs and HSCs. It summarises the current status and proposes future research directions.

Amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), supply chains have faltered. This has influenced operational and financial performance and lead to uncertainty in supply and distribution. Therefore, systems measuring supply chain risk and disruption management performance have gained interest. This study explores barriers to supply chain performance measurement during disruptions such as COVID-19.

Based on a survey and literature review, the authors formalise the barriers and rank them using the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) fuzzy Višekriterijumsko kompromisno rangiranje (VIKOR) methodology. A total of 14 experts in 11 countries were surveyed. Performance measurement is based on a balanced scorecard.

Fifteen barriers are identified. Based on DEMATEL analysis, the cause–effect relationships among the four scorecard aspects are explored. The customer axis is revealed as the cause, while the financial, internal business and learning/development are identified as the effect of the supply chain performance measurement. Fuzzy VIKOR calculations show that uncertainty of investment, disrupted cash flows and the bullwhip effect are the most critical barriers to measure supply chain performance during outbreaks such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study identifies and ranks general barriers; additional research is required to differentiate barriers in specific industrial sectors.

The findings may help develop proactive, resilient supply chain performance strategies to overcome disruptions.

Policy-makers and decision-makers in industrial and service firms can explore these findings to inform strategies for robust supply chains that can resist disruption in risky environments.

This research addresses a knowledge gap in barriers to measure supply chain performance in post-pandemic areas. It is unclear how far firms will measure supply chain performance in terms of learning from disruption patterns, managing financial and customer demand processes in light of COVID-19. This study contributes by explaining the influences among the barriers and exploring them, offering insights from multiple stakeholders.