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Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this research was to evaluate the maturity level of strategic communication management implemented by Brazilian startups.

Design/methodology/approach

This study employed the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), survey and Grey Fixed Weight Clustering modeling techniques. Three experts with extensive academic and practical experience in the subject participated in the AHP process, providing their opinions on the relative importance of eight variables associated with the topic under investigation, thus enabling their prioritization. Concurrently, data were collected through a survey from 23 respondents who have extensive knowledge about the realities of Brazilian startups. The weights derived from the AHP and the survey data were utilized in the Grey Fixed Weight Clustering modeling.

Findings

Based on the opinions of the 23 respondents, the level of implementation of practices related to strategic management, brand management, external image management and internal communication management is superficial. In addition, according to the majority of experts, Brazilian startups exhibited a medium level of maturity to address the key challenges related to communication management. Furthermore, this study reveals that the variables “financial resources allocation,” “stakeholder relationship” and “brand management” were deemed the most significant for the model.

Originality/value

The contributions presented herein can be beneficial for both researchers and startup managers seeking to enhance communication strategies in their organizations. This research also contributes by highlighting how grey systems theory can be extremely useful for conducting decision-making analyses in the context of startups, which is characterized by uncertainty and imprecise information.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 14 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 November 2016

Jianghui Xin

With the improvement of economic level, car ownership is growing, and the number of scrapped automobiles is increasing. Therefore, evaluation research for auto parts…

6227

Abstract

Purpose

With the improvement of economic level, car ownership is growing, and the number of scrapped automobiles is increasing. Therefore, evaluation research for auto parts remanufacturing is particularly important. The purpose of this paper is to construct the evaluation index system of auto parts remanufacturing and research the grey clustering theory. The grey fixed weight clustering evaluation is used to evaluate automobile engine remanufacturability.

Design/methodology/approach

According to the policies and regulations of China about remanufacturing, economic, technical, resources, energy and the environment, four indexes are selected to set up the evaluation standard of auto parts remanufacturing scheme. Grey fixed weight clustering method is used to evaluate remanufacturability of the auto parts. Firstly, number index and grey determine the whitenization weight function, then based on the clustering weight of each index, the clustering coefficient matrix is calculated. Finally, the class that certain object belongs to, according to the clustering coefficient matrix is determined.

Findings

Results show that constructed indexes of auto parts remanufacturing scheme can be used for effective evaluation. And the proposed fixed weight grey cluster model can aggregate all indexes information well. Therefore, the proposed indexes and model in this paper are effective and can be used for auto parts remanufacturing.

Practical implications

According to the requirements of the current situation in China, this paper puts forward a method based on grey clustering decision, to evaluate different auto parts remanufacturing schemes, for manufacturing enterprises to provide theoretical basis for remanufacturing production, in order to realize the reasonable configuration of resources.

Originality/value

This paper firstly establishes the evaluation index system of auto parts remanufacturing, the grey clustering theory is introduced into the evaluation of remanufacturing. The fixed-weight grey cluster model is proposed to aggregate indexes’ information.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 6 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 November 2016

Tianxiang Yao, Wenrong Cheng and Hong Gao

The purpose of this paper is to assess the natural disaster damage of Sichuan province and provide suggestions to prevent or decrease the loss owing to the natural disaster.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to assess the natural disaster damage of Sichuan province and provide suggestions to prevent or decrease the loss owing to the natural disaster.

Design/methodology/approach

The disaster loss system of Sichuan is regarded as a grey system. Five evaluation indicators are selected such as the number of deaths, total affected area, collapsed houses, damaged houses, and the direct economic losses. Grey fixed-weight clustering approach is applied in the cluster analysis. In order to reduce the impact of human factors, grey correlation analysis method is applied to calculate the weights of grey fixed-weight clustering.

Findings

The results of this paper indicate that the frequency of occurrence of major natural disaster in Sichuan increased since 2008. The major natural disasters occurred in 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2013. In contrast, there was almost no major disaster during 2000-2007. Minor natural disaster occurred in 2002 and 2003.

Practical implications

Sichuan province is one of the provinces most affected by natural disasters in China. Natural disasters have occurred frequently in Sichuan province since 2008 and pose serious threats to life and property safety. They have become an important restricting factor for economic and social development. In order to prevent or decrease the effects of natural disasters, effective measures should be taken to protect the environment.

Originality/value

This paper first normalizes the raw sequence, calculates the weight, and then establishes the grey cluster model. A new method is applied to determine the weight when evaluating natural disaster damage.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 6 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 August 2017

Jing Ye and Yaoguo Dang

Nowadays, evaluation objects are becoming more and more complicated. The interval grey numbers can be used to more accurately express the evaluation objects. However, the…

Abstract

Purpose

Nowadays, evaluation objects are becoming more and more complicated. The interval grey numbers can be used to more accurately express the evaluation objects. However, the information distribution of interval grey numbers is not balanced. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the central-point triangular whitenization weight function to solve the clustering process of this kind of numbers.

Design/methodology/approach

A new expression of the central-point triangular whitenization weight function is presented in this paper, in terms of the grey cluster problem based on interval grey numbers. By establishing the integral mean value function on the set of interval grey numbers, the application range of grey clustering model is extended to the interval grey number category, and, in this way, the grey fixed weight cluster model based on interval grey numbers is obtained.

Findings

The model is verified by a case which reveals a high distinguishability, validity and practicability.

Practical implications

This model can be used in many fields, such as agriculture, economy, geology and medical science, and provides a feasible method for evaluation schemes in performance evaluation, scheme selection, risk evaluation and so on.

Originality/value

The central-point triangular whitenization weight function is introduced. The method reflects the thought “make full use of the information” in grey system theory and further enriches the system of grey clustering theory as well as expands the application scope of the grey clustering method.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 7 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 October 2014

Naiming Xie

The purpose of this paper is to construct index system of international cooperation project selection, propose a grey cluster model for project selection and apply propose model…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to construct index system of international cooperation project selection, propose a grey cluster model for project selection and apply propose model for Jiangsu international cooperation key-technology projects selection.

Design/methodology/approach

Considering supply of international cooperation project is different with its demand, and regional key cooperation technologies should consider urgency and possibility of project cooperation, the author separately construct index groups for supply and demand. To aggregate assessment information of each cooperation project, whitenization function for each index is constructed and then cluster coefficient of index group could be aggregated by using each index and its weight information. Fixed weight grey cluster model is redefined and applied for selecting international cooperation project. And steps of calculation of model are given out. Real application of Jiangsu international cooperation projects’ selection is used for demonstrating process of the proposed model.

Findings

Results show that constructed indexes of international cooperation project selection can be used for selecting regional cooperation projects well. And proposed fixed weight grey cluster model can aggregate all indexes information well. Therefore, proposed indexes and model in this manuscript is effective and also it can be used for solving similar problems.

Practical implications

Jiangsu province is a developed region of China, and its international cooperation is more active than other regions accordingly. Constructed indexes of international cooperation project selection and fixed weight grey cluster model can help government to select needed projects easily.

Originality/value

This manuscript first define a demand as urgency and supply as possibility, and a new index system of international cooperation project selection is constructed with several urgency indexes and several possibility indexes. And a new assessment model, named as fixed weight grey cluster model, is proposed to aggregate indexes’ information.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 4 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 April 2020

Yuhang Zhang, Chang Liu, Tingting Xu, Yan Huang and Liangyan Tao

The technical level of aircraft failure analysis plays a special role in ensuring the safety of civil aviation flight. Using appropriate methods for functional failures analysis…

Abstract

Purpose

The technical level of aircraft failure analysis plays a special role in ensuring the safety of civil aviation flight. Using appropriate methods for functional failures analysis can provide a reliable reference for aircraft safety. The purpose of this paper is to provide a new and comprehensive measure based on conventional functional hazard analysis (FHA) and grey system theory to analysis and evaluate the class that each failure belongs to.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper integrates multiple methods including the FHA, the fixed weight cluster, the Delphi method and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). To begin with, use FHA method to sort out the corresponding failure states of a certain system from the perspective of function and determine the evaluation index. And then using group decision and AHP, determine the expert weight and index weight in the fixed weight cluster. The fixed weight cluster function is used to determine the grey class to which a certain functional failure belongs in the complex system.

Findings

In the past, the risk assessment of aircraft was mostly dominated by the subjective judgment of the experts, but it was not possible to give an objective observation score for each failure state. This paper addresses the problem efficiently as well as the feature of “little data, poor information.” The risk degree of each failure state can ultimately be replaced by a quantitative value.

Research limitations/implications

This paper uses the idea of clustering in grey system theory to evaluate the risk of landing gear system. In the expert evaluation stage, different experts evaluated the impact degree of the aircraft's failure caused by its functions, so the final risk classification is subjective to some extent.

Practical implications

This study analyzed the different conditions of the landing gear, including the front wheel steering, front wheel damping, front wheel steering system, brake system fault information and so on. It can effectively divide the different failure states and their effects, which is helpful to improve the safety of aircraft landing gear system and provide some useful methods and ideas for studying the safety of aircraft systems.

Social implications

Based on the FHA analysis process and the grey system theory, this paper determines various potential risks and their consequences of various functions according to the hierarchy, so as to carry out further detailed analysis on the risks that may occur under various functional conditions and take certain measures to prevent them. It is helpful to improve the risk management and control ability of aircraft in the actual flight process and to guarantee the safety of people's lives and property.

Originality/value

This paper is a pioneer in integrating the FHA method and the grey system theory, which exactly can be used to address the problem with the character of “little data, poor information.” The model established in this paper for the defects of FHA can effectively improve the accuracy of FHA, which is of great significance for the study of safety. In this paper, a case about landing gear system is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the model.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 10 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 October 2013

Chaoqing Yuan, Benhai Guo and Hongqi Liu

As the world's largest developing country, China is relying on innovation to transform the pattern of economic growth; more and more attention has been paid to the construction of…

Abstract

Purpose

As the world's largest developing country, China is relying on innovation to transform the pattern of economic growth; more and more attention has been paid to the construction of China's regional innovation system (RIS). This paper aims to establish a provincial evaluation index system for RIS construction level and that of construction condition and evaluate the innovation system construction level and construction condition of China's provinces by using grey fixed weight clustering.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper makes a comprehensive assessment of RIS by using grey fixed weight clustering.

Findings

The results show that the construction level of RIS is clearly associated with construction condition of RIS. In accordance with the results of the assessment, China's 31 provinces are classified into four typical types. Some relevant key measures to promote the RIS are suggested.

Originality/value

This paper establishes a new frame to evaluate RIS.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 3 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 29 July 2014

Yong Liu and Huan-huan Zhao

– The purpose of this paper is to construct a dynamic information aggregation decision-making model based on variable precision rough set.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to construct a dynamic information aggregation decision-making model based on variable precision rough set.

Design/methodology/approach

To deal with the dynamic decision-making problems, the grey relational analysis method, grey fixed weight clustering based on the centre triangle whitening weight function and maximum entropy principle is used to establish the dynamic information aggregation decision-making model based on variable precision rough set. The method, to begin with, the grey relational analysis method is used to determine the attributes weights of each stage; taking the proximity of the attribute measurement value and positive and negative desired effect value and the uncertainty of time weight into account, a multi-objective optimisation model based on maximum entropy principle is established to solve the model with Lagrange multiplier method, so that time weights expression are acquired; what is more, the decision-making attribute is obtained by grey fixed weight clustering based on the centre triangle whitening weight function, so that multi-decision-making table with dynamic characteristics is established, and then probabilistic decision rules from multi-criteria decision table are derived by applying variable precision rough set. Finally, a decision-making model validates the feasibility and effectiveness of the model.

Findings

The results show that it the proposed model can well aggregate the multi-stage dynamic decision-making information, realise the extraction of decision-making rules.

Research limitations/implications

The method exposed in the paper can be used to deal with the decision-making problems with the multi-stage dynamic characteristics, and decision-making attributes contain noise data and the attribute values are interval grey numbers.

Originality/value

The paper succeeds in realising both the aggregation of dynamic decision-making information and the extraction of decision-making rules.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 4 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2015

Si-feng Liu, Yingjie Yang, Zhi-geng Fang and Naiming Xie

The purpose of this paper is to present two novel grey cluster evaluation models to solve the difficulty in extending the bounds of each clustering index of grey cluster…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present two novel grey cluster evaluation models to solve the difficulty in extending the bounds of each clustering index of grey cluster evaluation models.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the triangular whitenization weight function corresponding to class 1 is changed to a whitenization weight function of its lower measures, and the triangular whitenization weight function corresponding to class s is changed to a whitenization weight function of its upper measures. The difficulty in extending the bound of each clustering indicator is solved with this improvement.

Findings

The findings of this paper are the novel grey cluster evaluation models based on mixed centre-point triangular whitenization weight functions and the novel grey cluster evaluation models based on mixed end-point triangular whitenization weight functions.

Practical implications

A practical evaluation and decision problem for some projects in a university has been studied using the new triangular whitenization weight function.

Originality/value

Particularly, compared with grey variable weight clustering model and grey fixed weight clustering model, the grey cluster evaluation model using whitenization weight function is more suitable to be used to solve the problem of poor information clustering evaluation. The grey cluster evaluation model using endpoint triangular whitenization weight functions is suitable for the situation that all grey boundary is clear, but the most likely points belonging to each grey class are unknown; the grey cluster evaluation model using centre-point triangular whitenization weight functions is suitable for those problems where it is easier to judge the most likely points belonging to each grey class, but the grey boundary is not clear.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 5 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 August 2018

Fenyi Dong, Bing Qi and Yuyang Jie

The purpose of this paper is to cluster and analyse the level of agricultural science and technology in China’s provinces by using grey clustering model, to have an overall…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to cluster and analyse the level of agricultural science and technology in China’s provinces by using grey clustering model, to have an overall understanding of the current situation of agricultural science and technology development in these provinces, and to offer a reference for decision-making departments to draw up agricultural science and technology development plans.

Design/methodology/approach

First of all, the grey clustering assessment is used to evaluate the clustering of agricultural science and technology level in China’s provinces in 2011, 2013 and 2015. Also a comparative static analysis is made. Then, based on the prediction data of GM (1,1) model, the provincial agricultural science and technology levels in 2017 and 2019 are analysed by grey clustering. Finally, some suggestions are put forward, such as adjusting the allocation of agricultural science and technology resources and providing policy preferences to backward areas, so as to promote the coordinated development of agricultural science and technology in China.

Findings

The development of agricultural science and technology in various provinces and regions of the authors’ country is unbalanced, with a big gap of agricultural and technology level between different provinces. What’s more, the level of agricultural science and technology in remote areas has been developing slowly, but it has been lagging behind. Through the grey clustering analysis of the provincial agricultural science and technology level in 2017 and 2019, it is concluded that the level of agricultural science and technology will be promoted as a whole, but the gap of agricultural science and technology level between different provinces and cities will be enlarged.

Research limitations/implications

This paper comprehensively studies the current situation and future development trends of agricultural science and technology in China’s provinces in recent years, and preliminarily analyses the reasons for the transformation of agricultural science and technology level, however, with no further inspection. Related research should be made for further study.

Practical implications

This paper will provide overall understanding of the current situation of agricultural science and technology development in China’s provinces and cities, and put forward relevant suggestions for the future development of agricultural science and technology in China’s provinces and cities, and provide references for decision-making departments to draw up agricultural science and technology development plans.

Originality/value

For the first time, the grey clustering method is used to the research of agricultural science and technology level in the province. It analyses and evaluates the past and present situation and predicts the future development trend of provincial agricultural science and technology level by the grey clustering analysis method, which is a complete research.

Details

Grey Systems: Theory and Application, vol. 8 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2043-9377

Keywords

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