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The primary aim of this study is to detail the use of soft computing techniques in business and management research. Its objectives are as follows: to conduct a comprehensive scientometric analysis of publications in the field of soft computing, to explore the evolution of keywords, to identify key research themes and latent topics and to map the intellectual structure of soft computing in the business literature.

This research offers a comprehensive overview of the field by synthesising 43 years (1980–2022) of soft computing research from the Scopus database. It employs descriptive analysis, topic modelling (TM) and scientometric analysis.

This study's co-citation analysis identifies three primary categories of research in the field: the components, the techniques and the benefits of soft computing. Additionally, this study identifies 16 key study themes in the soft computing literature using TM, including decision-making under uncertainty, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM), the application of deep learning in object detection and fault diagnosis, circular economy and sustainable development and a few others.

This analysis offers a valuable understanding of soft computing for researchers and industry experts and highlights potential areas for future research.

This study uses scientific mapping and performance indicators to analyse a large corpus of 4,512 articles in the field of soft computing. It makes significant contributions to the intellectual and conceptual framework of soft computing research by providing a comprehensive overview of the literature on soft computing literature covering a period of four decades and identifying significant trends and topics to direct future research.

Given the regional heterogeneity of economic development, electricity consumption in various regions exhibits a discrepant growth pattern. The purpose of this study is to construct a grey system forecasting model with intelligent parameters for predicting provincial electricity consumption in China.

First, parameter optimization and structural expansion are simultaneously integrated into a unified grey system prediction framework, enhancing its adaptive capabilities. Second, by setting the minimum simulation percentage error as the optimization goal, the authors apply the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to search for the optimal grey generation order and background value coefficient. Third, to assess the performance across diverse power consumption systems, the authors use two electricity consumption cases and select eight other benchmark models to analyze the simulation and prediction errors. Further, the authors conduct simulations and trend predictions using data from all 31 provinces in China, analyzing and predicting the development trends in electricity consumption for each province from 2021 to 2026.

The study identifies significant heterogeneity in the development trends of electricity consumption systems among diverse provinces in China. The grey prediction model, optimized with multiple intelligent parameters, demonstrates superior adaptability and dynamic adjustment capabilities compared to traditional fixed-parameter models. Outperforming benchmark models across various evaluation indicators such as root mean square error (RMSE), average percentage error and Theil’s index, the new model establishes its robustness in predicting electricity system behavior.

Acknowledging the limitations of traditional grey prediction models in capturing diverse growth patterns under fixed-generation orders, single structures and unadjustable background values, this study proposes a fractional grey intelligent prediction model with multiple parameter optimization. By incorporating multiple parameter optimizations and structure expansion, it substantiates the model’s superiority in forecasting provincial electricity consumption.

With the rise in wine consumption, accurate wine price forecasts have significantly impacted restaurant and hotel purchasing decisions and inventory management. This study aims to develop a precise and effective wine price point and interval forecasting model.

The proposed forecast model uses an improved hybrid kernel extreme learning machine with an attention mechanism and a multi-objective swarm intelligent optimization algorithm to produce more accurate price estimates. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt at applying artificial intelligence techniques to improve wine price prediction. Additionally, an effective method for predicting price intervals was constructed by leveraging the characteristics of the error distribution. This approach facilitates quantifying the uncertainty of wine price fluctuations, thus rendering decision-making by relevant practitioners more reliable and controllable.

The empirical findings indicated that the proposed forecast model provides accurate wine price predictions and reliable uncertainty analysis results. Compared with the benchmark models, the proposed model exhibited superiority in both one-step- and multi-step-ahead forecasts. Meanwhile, the model provides new evidence from artificial intelligence to explain wine prices and understand their driving factors.

This study is a pioneering attempt to evaluate the applicability and effectiveness of advanced artificial intelligence techniques in wine price forecasts. The proposed forecast model not only provides useful options for wine price forecasting but also introduces an innovative addition to existing forecasting research methods and literature.

The present study is intended to develop an effective approach to the real-time modeling of general dynamic nonlinear systems based on the multidimensional Taylor network (MTN).

The authors present a detailed explanation for modeling the general discrete nonlinear dynamic system by the MTN. The weight coefficients of the network can be obtained by sampling data learning. Specifically, the least square (LS) method is adopted herein due to its desirable real-time performance and robustness.

Compared with the existing mainstream nonlinear time series analysis methods, the least square method-based multidimensional Taylor network (LSMTN) features its more desirable prediction accuracy and real-time performance. Model metric results confirm the satisfaction of modeling and identification for the generalized nonlinear system. In addition, the MTN is of simpler structure and lower computational complexity than neural networks.

Once models of general nonlinear dynamical systems are formulated based on MTNs and their weight coefficients are identified using the data from the systems of ecosystems, society, organizations, businesses or human behavior, the forecasting, optimizing and controlling of the systems can be further studied by means of the MTN analytical models.

MTNs can be used as controllers, identifiers, filters, predictors, compensators and equation solvers (solving nonlinear differential equations or approximating nonlinear functions) of the systems of ecosystems, society, organizations, businesses or human behavior.

The operating efficiency and benefits of social systems can be prominently enhanced, and their operating costs can be significantly reduced.

Nonlinear systems are typically impacted by a variety of factors, which makes it a challenge to build correct mathematical models for various tasks. As a result, existing modeling approaches necessitate a large number of limitations as preconditions, severely limiting their applicability. The proposed MTN methodology is believed to contribute much to the data-based modeling and identification of the general nonlinear dynamical system with no need for its prior knowledge.

Despite the importance of demand forecasting in retail industry, its influence on supply chain agility has not been sufficiently examined. From a total information technology (IT) capability perspective, the purpose of this paper is to examine the antecedent of supply chain agility through retail demand forecasting.

Combining the literature reviews, the quantitative method of algorithm analysis was targeted at, and the firm data were processed on MATLAB.

This paper summarizes IT dimensions of demand forecasting in retail industry and distinguishes the relationship of supply chain agility and demand forecasting from an IT capability view.

Managers can derive a better understanding and measurement of operating activities that appropriately balance among supply chain agility, IT capability and demand forecast practice. Demand forecasting should be integrated into the firm operations to determine the agility level of supply chain in marketplace.

This paper constructs new theoretical grounds for research into the relationship of demand forecasting-supply chain agility and provides an empirical assessment of the essential components for the means to prioritize IT-supply chain.

Accounting information systems are mainly rule-based, and data are usually available and well-structured. However, many accounting systems are yet to catch up with current technological developments. Thus, artificial intelligence (AI) in financial accounting is often applied only in pilot projects. Using AI-based forecasts in accounting enables proactive management and detailed analysis. However, thus far, there is little knowledge about which prediction models have already been evaluated for accounting problems. Given this lack of research, our study aims to summarize existing findings on how AI is used for forecasting purposes in financial accounting. Therefore, the authors aim to provide a comprehensive overview and agenda for future researchers to gain more generalizable knowledge.

The authors identify existing research on AI-based forecasting in financial accounting by conducting a systematic literature review. For this purpose, the authors used Scopus and Web of Science as scientific databases. The data collection resulted in a final sample size of 47 studies. These studies were analyzed regarding their forecasting purpose, sample size, period and applied machine learning algorithms.

The authors identified three application areas and presented details regarding the accuracy and AI methods used. Our findings show that sociotechnical and generalizable knowledge is still missing. Therefore, the authors also develop an open research agenda that future researchers can address to enable the more frequent and efficient use of AI-based forecasts in financial accounting.

Owing to the rapid development of AI algorithms, our results can only provide an overview of the current state of research. Therefore, it is likely that new AI algorithms will be applied, which have not yet been covered in existing research. However, interested researchers can use our findings and future research agenda to develop this field further.

Given the high relevance of AI in financial accounting, our results have several implications and potential benefits for practitioners. First, the authors provide an overview of AI algorithms used in different accounting use cases. Based on this overview, companies can evaluate the AI algorithms that are most suitable for their practical needs. Second, practitioners can use our results as a benchmark of what prediction accuracy is achievable and should strive for. Finally, our study identified several blind spots in the research, such as ensuring employee acceptance of machine learning algorithms in companies. However, companies should consider this to implement AI in financial accounting successfully.

To the best of our knowledge, no study has yet been conducted that provided a comprehensive overview of AI-based forecasting in financial accounting. Given the high potential of AI in accounting, the authors aimed to bridge this research gap. Moreover, our cross-application view provides general insights into the superiority of specific algorithms.

Electricity plays an essential role in nations' economic development. However, coal and renewables currently play an important part in electricity production in major world economies. The current study aims to forecast the electricity production from coal and renewables in the USA, China and Japan.

Two intelligent grey forecasting models – optimized discrete grey forecasting model DGM (1,1,α), and optimized even grey forecasting model EGM (1,1,α,θ) – are used to forecast electricity production. Also, the accuracy of the forecasts is measured through the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE).

Coal-powered electricity production is decreasing, while renewable energy production is increasing in the major economies (MEs). China's coal-fired electricity production continues to grow. The forecasts generated by the two grey models are more accurate than that by the classical models EGM (1,1) and DGM (1,1) and the exponential triple smoothing (ETS).

The study confirms the reliability and validity of grey forecasting models to predict electricity production in the MEs.

This paper aims to develop a method based on artificial intelligence capable of predicting the due date (DD) of job shops in real-time, aiming to assist in the decision-making process of industries.

This paper chooses to use the methodological approach Design Science Research (DSR). The DSR aims to build solutions based on technology to solve relevant issues, where its research results from precise methods in the evaluation and construction of the model. The steps of the DSR are identification of the problem and motivation, definition of the solution’s objectives, design and development, demonstration, evaluation of the solution and the communication of results.

Along with this work, it is possible to verify that the proposed method allows greater accuracy in the DD definition forecasts when compared to conventional calculations.

Some limitations of this study can be pointed. It is possible to mention questions related to the tasks to be informed by users, as they could lead to problems in the performance of the artifact as the input data may not be correctly posted due to the misunderstanding of the question by part of the users.

The proposed artifact is a method capable of contributing to the development of the manufacturing industry to improve the forecast of manufacturing dates, assisting in making decisions related to production planning. The use of real production data contributed to creating, demonstrating and evaluating the artifact. This approach was important for developing the method allowing more reliability.

This study aims to propose a risk-induced game theoretic forecasting model to predict average daily rate (ADR) under COVID-19, using an advanced recurrent neural network.

Using three data sets from upper-midscale hotels in three locations (i.e. urban, interstate and suburb), from January 1, 2018, to August 31, 2020, three long-term, short-term memory (LSTM) models were evaluated against five traditional forecasting models.

The models proposed in this study outperform traditional methods, such that the simplest LSTM model is more accurate than most of the benchmark models in two of the three tested hotels. In particular, the results show that traditional methods are inefficient in hotels with rapid fluctuations of demand and ADR, as observed during the pandemic. In contrast, LSTM models perform more accurately for these hotels.

This study is limited by its use of American data and data from midscale hotels as well as only predicting ADR.

This study produced a reliable, accurate forecasting model considering risk and competitor behavior.

This paper extends the application of game theory principles to ADR forecasting and combines it with the concept of risk for forecasting during uncertain times.

This study is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to use actual hotel data from the COVID-19 pandemic to determine an appropriate neural network forecasting method for times of uncertainty. The application of Shapley value and operational risk obtained a game-theoretic property-level model, which fits best.

Considering the small sample size and non-linear characteristics of historical energy consumption data from certain provinces in Southwest China, the authors propose a hybrid accumulation operator and a hybrid accumulation grey univariate model as a more accurate and reliable methodology for forecasting energy consumption. This method can provide valuable decision-making support for policy makers involved in energy management and planning.

The hybrid accumulation operator is proposed by linearly combining the fractional-order accumulation operator and the new information priority accumulation. The new operator is then used to build a new grey system model, named the hybrid accumulation grey model (HAGM). An optimization algorithm based on the JAYA optimizer is then designed to solve the non-linear parameters θ, r, and γ of the proposed model. Four different types of curves are used to verify the prediction performance of the model for data series with completely different trends. Finally, the prediction performance of the model is applied to forecast the total energy consumption of Southwest Provinces in China using the real world data sets from 2010 to 2020.

The proposed HAGM is a general formulation of existing grey system models, including the fractional-order accumulation and new information priority accumulation. Results from the validation cases and real-world cases on forecasting the total energy consumption of Southwest Provinces in China illustrate that the proposed model outperforms the other seven models based on different modelling methods.

The HAGM is used to forecast the total energy consumption of the Southwest Provinces of China from 2010 to 2020. The results indicate that the HAGM with HA has higher prediction accuracy and broader applicability than the seven comparative models, demonstrating its potential for use in the energy field.

The HAGM(1,1) is used to predict energy consumption of Southwest Provinces in China with the raw data from 2010 to 2020. The HAGM(1,1) with HA has higher prediction accuracy and wider applicability compared with some existing models, implying its high potential to be used in energy field.

Theoretically, this paper presents, for the first time, a hybrid accumulation grey univariate model based on a new hybrid accumulation operator. In terms of application, this work provides a new method for accurate forecasting of the total energy consumption for southwest provinces in China.