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Graphs in corporate annual reports are a double‐edged sword. While they offer the potential for improved communication of accounting information to users, the preparers of the annual reports can easily manipulate the graphs for their own interests. For over a decade, the empirical financial graphics literature has focused on examining company reporting practices. A particular concern has been measurement distortion, which violates a fundamental principle of graph construction. Unfortunately, it is not yet known whether observed levels of measurement distortion are likely to affect users’ perceptions of financial performance. This study uses an experimental approach to address this issue. Pairs of graphs are shown to establish the level of difference that is just noticeable to graph readers. Six levels of “distortion” are investigated (5 per cent, 10 per cent, 20 per cent, 30 per cent, 40 per cent and 50 per cent). Results indicate that if financial graphs are to avoid distorting the perceptions of users, then no measurement distortions in excess of 10 per cent should be allowed. Users with lower levels of financial understanding appear to be most at risk of being misled by distorted graphs. Further research will be necessary to investigate whether this impact upon perceptions subsequently affects users’ decisions in specific contexts.

This study aims to focus on sustainable supplier selection in a construction company considering a new multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method based on dominance-based rough set analysis. The inclusion of sustainability concept in industrial supply chains has started gaining momentum due to increased environmental protection awareness and social obligations. The selection of sustainable suppliers marks the first step toward accomplishing this objective. The problem of selecting the right suppliers fulfilling the sustainable requirements is a major MCDM problem since various conflicting factors are underplay in the selection process. The decision-makers are often confronted with inconsistent situations forcing them to make imprecise and vague decisions.

This paper presents a new method based on dominance-based rough sets for the selection of right suppliers based on sustainable performance criteria relying on the triple bottom line approach. The method applied has its distinct advantages by providing more transparency in dealing with the preference information provided by the decision-makers and is thus found to be more intuitive and appealing as a performance measurement tool.

The technique is easy to apply using “jrank” software package and devises results in the form of decision rules and ranking that further assist the decision-makers in making an informed decision that increases credibility in the decision-making process.

The novelty of this study of its kind is that uses the dominance-based rough set approach for a sustainable supplier selection process.

Recommender system approaches such as collaborative and content-based filtering rely on user ratings and product descriptions to recommend products. More recently, recommender system research has focussed on exploiting knowledge from user-generated content such as product reviews to enhance recommendation performance. The purpose of this paper is to show that the performance of a recommender system can be enhanced by integrating explicit knowledge extracted from product reviews with implicit knowledge extracted from analysis of consumer’s purchase behaviour.

The authors introduce a sentiment and preference-guided strategy for product recommendation by integrating not only explicit, user-generated and sentiment-rich content but also implicit knowledge gleaned from users’ product purchase preferences. Integration of both of these knowledge sources helps to model sentiment over a set of product aspects. The authors show how established dimensionality reduction and feature weighting approaches from text classification can be adopted to weight and select an optimal subset of aspects for recommendation tasks. The authors compare the proposed approach against several baseline methods as well as the state-of-the-art better method, which recommends products that are superior to a query product.

Evaluation results from seven different product categories show that aspect weighting and selection significantly improves state-of-the-art recommendation approaches.

The proposed approach recommends products by analysing user sentiment on product aspects. Therefore, the proposed approach can be used to develop recommender systems that can explain to users why a product is recommended. This is achieved by presenting an analysis of sentiment distribution over individual aspects that describe a given product.

This paper describes a novel approach to integrate consumer purchase behaviour analysis and aspect-level sentiment analysis to enhance recommendation. In particular, the authors introduce the idea of aspect weighting and selection to help users identify better products. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate the practical benefits of this approach on a variety of product categories and compare the approach with the current state-of-the-art approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if university students could accurately extract information from graphs presented in 2D or 3D formats with different colour hue variations or solid black and white.

Participants are presented with 2D and 3D bar and pie charts in a PowerPoint presentation and are asked to extract specific information from the displays. A three (question difficulty) × two (graph type) × two (dimension) × two (colour) repeated measures ANOVA is conducted for both accuracy and reaction time.

Overall, 2D graphs led to better comprehension, particularly when complex information was presented. Accuracy was similar for colour and black and white graphs.

These results suggest that 2D graphs are preferable to 3D graphs, particularly when the task requires that the reader extract complex information.

For the past several decades, diagrams have been valuable additions to textual explanations in textbooks and in the classroom to teach various concepts. With an increase in technological advancements, many authors add extraneous features to their graphs to make them more aesthetically pleasing. This paper has shown, however, that 3D rendering may negatively affect graph comprehension.

Japan's decision to release nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean in 2023 has sparked strong opposition at home and abroad. In this study, Graph Model for Conflict Resolution (GMCR) method is adopted to analyze the conflict problem, and reasonable equilibrium solutions are given to solve the conflict event.

In this study, GMCR is adopted to solve the conflict problem. First, identify the key decision-makers (DMs) on the issue of nuclear effluent and the relevant options they might adopt. Second, the options of each DM are arranged and combined to form a set of feasible states. Thirdly, the graph model is constructed according to the change of DM's options, and the relative preference of each DM is determined. Finally, the conflict problem is solved according to the definition of GMCR equilibrium.

Discharging nuclear wastewater into the ocean is not the right choice to solve the problem. Developing more space to store nuclear wastewater is more conducive to the protection of the ocean environment.

It is undesirable for the Japanese government to unilaterally discharge nuclear wastewater into the ocean. Objectively assessing the radioactivity of nuclear wastewater and the cooperation of relevant stakeholders can better solve this conflict.

The problem arising from Japan's releasing plan is complicated because of a lack of information and the existence of multiple stakeholders, while GMCR can help us with a better view of the current circumstance in the conflict.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the significant corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues and to analyze the interaction among them in order to improve supply chain performance (SCP) system of an organization.

To achieve the objective, a preference rating approach (synthesized in company preference rating (CPR) and company satisfaction assessment (CSA) approaches) has been used in two stages as: stage 1, relative importance rating (RIR) of identified issues has been computed using CPR approach. For this, preference graphs have been developed based on the field expert’s opinions using graph-theory-based representation technique. In stage 2: competitive priority ratings of CSR issues with respect to competitive strategies have been calculated using CSA approach.

Based on RIRs (stage 1), it has been noticed that issue namely “social benefits for employees” is more desirable among all considered issues. In stage 2, based on competitive priority ratings, the issue “social benefits for employees” is more important for an organization to build a better brand reputation through CSR activities and issue “degree of CSR implementation” is more significant in order to improve the SCP of an organization. The issue “environmental protection” helps the organization to reduce their overall environmental impact and also provides an aid in achieving long-term sustainable goals of an organization.

The findings of present research gives an idea about the importance of CSR issues, based on this, managers can decide, which issue is more significant and can help in taking decisions and framing strategies in context of CSR for improving the SCP of their organization effectively and efficiently.

As per the best knowledge, recognized CSR issues have been considered first time to quantify the CSR-based SCP of Indian automobile industries located near around Delhi region, India. This paper may provide an aid to the managers in making the CSR-based policies to enhance their SCP.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a strategic conflict analysis, based on the graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR), that is applied to information technology outsourcing (ITO) in a real-world software development and implementation process in Brazil.

Because the idea of this study is to answer “why” the ITO conflicts occur and “how” they can be avoided, the case study methodology was adopted. The software GMCR II was used to analyze the interactions between an IT vendor and an IT client.

The results suggest that a lack of relational governance is a critical issue that could be handled to improve the interaction between those involved.

The main results are restricted to the case study and cannot be generalized. Moreover, a specific limitation of this paper pertains to the use of the GMCR and the consequent difficulty for IT vendors and IT clients to work with a large number of actions and to set preferences for several states of conflict.

The strategic analysis of outsourcing conflicts provides a holistic view of the current situation that may assist the client and vendor in future decisions and identify guidelines to ensure successful ITO. Therefore, this paper provides an effective guide for clients and vendors to better manage conflicts and establish a contingency vision to avoid such disputes.

The ITO conflict is analyzed using the GMCR, considering both perspectives of the outsourcing process (vendors and clients).

Increasing pressure from government and consumer to be environmentally conscious has led firms to focus their attention on the assessment and controlling the adverse impacts their operations have on the environment. The current study focuses on identifying the factors and their relative importance in the implementation of Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) process.

The factors influencing the GSCM are ranked from most important to least important using a novel method of ranking relying on rough sets theory. Opinions on the importance of the factors are gathered from the experts from industrial, environmental, and societal domains.

Involvement of government in promoting the importance of green practices in organizations and societal insistence of being environmentally conscious are the factors that demonstrated maximum potential in establishing a strong GSCM framework.

This study aids the management to discover important factors for the establishment of a strong GSCM framework. This encourages the management to follow and apply green practices in operations. Also, it sheds light on the current situation of environmental awareness in the Indian construction industries.

This paper adds to the existing literature on identification and ordering of factors for GSCM by introducing a novel method of ranking based on Rough set approach. The method includes the preference information of the decision makers to yield the final ranking of the factors.

This paper investigates whether and how G2G collaboration for policy and decision‐making can be effectively supported by an appropriately developed information system.

The research method adopted in this paper follows the “Design Science Paradigm”, which has been extensively used in information systems research.

As resulted from the case study described in this paper, the proposed system has significant potential for supporting G2G collaboration for policy and decision‐making. It can support the collaborative understanding of social problems and needs, and the development of alternative actions or solutions for them. In addition, it can support the collaborative development of detailed action plans for the selected alternative(s). During the implementation of these actions, the system can be used for the collaborative monitoring of them, the identification of implementation problems and issues, and the development of alternatives for managing them. Finally, it can be also used for the collaborative evaluation of these actions by the involved public organizations, as well as the citizens and groups who are their recipients.

Enhanced public policy and decision‐making through the use of the proposed web‐based system.

The main contribution of this paper lies in the development of a web‐based system for supporting the G2G collaboration required for public policy and decision‐making in the public administration, as well as the creation, leveraging and utilization of the relevant knowledge. The proposed system allows for distributed, synchronous or asynchronous, G2G collaboration and aims at aiding the involved public organizations by providing them a series of argumentation, decision‐making and knowledge management features.

The sustainable development of the energy–economy–environment (3E) needs to ensure the balanced interplay between the energy–economy and the environment. Likewise, creating such balance has become a critical policy issue among countries worldwide. However, in the past, studies have ignored to create a balanced interplay of the energy–economy and environment. Therefore, to address said research gap, this paper aims to develop a graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR)-based strategy for the sustainable development of the 3E to ensure better environmental quality.

To develop a strategic framework for the balanced interplay between the energy–economy and the environment, the study used the GMCR approach and designed a mechanism for the sustainable development of the 3E to ensure better environmental quality in the context of Pakistan.

The results from the GMCR indicate that sustainable development of the 3E to ensure better environmental quality is possible when government focuses on the sustainable growth of the economy through environmental policies and the use of renewable energy.

By solving the 3E conflict, this study provides policy insights for the government of Pakistan for the sustainable development of the energy economy and the environment to ensure better environmental quality in the country.

For the first time, this paper tried to put forward a way through which conflicting objectives can be achieved together for the sustainable development of the 3E to ensure better environmental quality.