Browsing by Author "Afful-Dadzie, E.,"
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Item Assessing Commercial Viability of Technology Start-up Businesses in a Government Venture Capital under Intuitionistic Fuzzy Environment.(Springer International Publishing AG, 2017) Afful-Dadzie, E.,; Afful-Dadzie, A.,; Oplatková, Z. K.Governments around the world are increasingly showing keen interests in venture capital investments in technology start-up businesses. However, determining the commercial potential of a new Technology start-up business is generally seen as a complex exercise especially in a government-controlled setting where selection of candidates can be clouded by several peripheral considerations. To generate more interests in decision-making models aimed at assessing the commercial viability of candidate start-up businesses in a government-run venture capital, this study (1) provides a modified form of the Strategic Technology Evaluation Program (STEP) called G-STEP as a new selection criteria for a government-controlled venture capital scheme (2) adopts a comprehensive intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS framework with a sensitivity analysis component for the assessment of early stage but high potential tech start-up firms and (3) demonstrates its applicability with a numerical example assessing the commercial potential of start-up businesses in a Government technology venture capital program. The proposed decision-making framework could be useful in the assessment and selection problems in other government priority areas.Item Comparative State-of-the-Art Survey of Classical Fuzzy Set and Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets in Multi-Criteria Decision Making.(Springer International Publishing AG, 2016-07-18) Afful-Dadzie, E.,; Oplatková, Z. K.,; Prieto, L. A. B.Fuzzy sets extend deterministic multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods to deal with uncertainty and imprecision in decision making. Over the years, many generalizations have been proposed to the classical Fuzzy sets to deal with different kinds of imprecise and subjective data. One such generalization is Atanassov’s Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set (IFS) which is becoming increasingly popular in MCDM research. Together, the two notions of uncertainty modeling: ‘classical fuzzy set’ (Zadeh) and intuitionistic fuzzy set (Atanassov) have been utilized in many real-world MCDM applications spanning diverse disciplines. As IFS grows in popularity by the day, this paper conducts a literature survey to (1) compare the trend of publications of ‘classical fuzzy’ set theory and its generalized form, the intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS) as used in MCDM methods from 2000 to 2015; (2) classify their contributions into three novel tracks of applications, hybrid, and extended approaches; (3) determine which MCDM method is the most used together with the two forms of fuzzy modeling; and (4) report on other measures such as leading authors and their country affiliations, yearly scholarly contributions, and the subject areas where most of the two fuzzy notions in MCDM approaches are applied. Finally, the study presents trends and directions as far as the applications of classical fuzzy set and intuitionistic fuzzy sets in MCDM are concerned.Item A decision making model for selecting start-up businesses in a government venture capital scheme(2016) Afful-Dadzie, E.,; Afful-Dadzie, A.urpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose an intuitionistic fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) multi-criteria decision making method for the selection of start-up businesses in a government venture capital (GVC) scheme. Most GVC funded start-ups fail or underperform compared to those funded by private VCs due to a number of reasons including lack of transparency and unfairness in the selection process. By its design, the proposed method is able to increase transparency and reduce the influence of bias in GVC start-up selection processes. The proposed method also models uncertainty in the selection criteria using fuzzy set theory that mirrors the natural human decision-making process. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed method first presents a set of criteria relevant to the selection of early stage but high-potential start-ups in a GVC financing scheme. These criteria are then analyzed using the TOPSIS method in an intuitionistic fuzzy environment. The intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging Operator is used to aggregate ratings of decision makers. A numerical example of how the proposed method could be used in GVC start-up candidate selection in a highly competitive GVC scheme is provided. Findings – The methodology adopted increases fairness and transparency in the selection of start-up businesses for fund support in a government-run VC scheme. The criteria set proposed is ideal for selecting start-up businesses in a government controlled VC scheme. The decision-making framework demonstrates how uncertainty in the selection criteria are efficiently modelled with the TOPSIS method. Practical implications – As GVC schemes increase around the world, and concerns about failure and underperformance of GVC funded start-ups increase, the proposed method could help bring formalism and ensure the selection of start-ups with high potential for success. Originality/value – The framework designs relevant sets of criteria for a selection problem, demonstrates the use of extended TOPSIS method in intuitionistic fuzzy sets and apply the proposed method in an area that has not been considered before. Additionally, it demonstrates how intuitionistic fuzzy TOPSIS could be carried out in a real decision-making application setting.Item A fuzzy Topsis framework for selecting fragile states for support facility.(2014) Afful-Dadzie, E.,; Nabareseh, S.,; Afful-Dadzie, A.,; Oplatkova, Z. K.Aid recipient-countries especially those classified as ‘fragile states’ look to donor agencies and other financial organizations for various forms of support facilities to rebuild institutions and repair infrastructure. As countries within the fragile states bracket increase around the world, competition for such assistances has also become keen. To select countries for the fragile states support facility run by the African and Asian development banks, expert ratings over sets of unquantifiable performance based criteria are used to determine the ultimate deserving countries. In order to ensure transparency and fairness in the face of competition, such multi-criteria ratings demand techniques that do not only model human judgements but take into account the effect of variations in expert ratings as a result of possible influences. This paper proposes a fuzzy TOPSIS framework for selecting fragile states for support facility based on the African Development Bank selection criteria. Using pre-defined linguistic terms parameterized by triangular fuzzy numbers, a numerical example is provided on how the framework can be used by decision makers towards final selection of competing countries for the fragile states support facility. The paper anticipating possible influences of lobbyists, further performs a sensitivity analysis to examine the effect that bias in expert ratings could have on the final selection. The result shows a framework that can be applied in instances of selecting countries and organizations for aid purposes.Item Model for assessing quality of online health information: a fuzzy VIKOR based method.(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2015-11-25) Afful-Dadzie, E.,; Nabareseh, S.,; Oplatková, Z. K.,; Klímek, P.Today, tens and thousands of websites provide health-related information on various topics to a growing number of consumers. However, the lay user is often faced with a challenge of determining the quality of information provided by one site from the other. To ensure the protection of users from sites that provide unreliable and unsafe information, there has to be a competent reviewing body that rates and ranks the quality of information provided by each site. This paper (i) proposes a new criteria framework for assessing the quality of online health information and (ii) uses a fuzzy ‘visekriterijumska optimicija i kompromisno resenje’ method to demonstrate how online health information providers could be assessed and ranked based on their quality. The fuzzy modelling uses pre-defined linguistic variables parameterized by triangular fuzzy numbers in the assessment and subsequent ranking of providers under a particular health topic. A numerical example is demonstrated using diabetes online information providers to show how the assessment and ranking is carried out. The proposed framework provides functional basis for evaluating the quality of internet health information providers on any particular health topic.Item Open Government Data in Africa: A preference elicitation analysis of media practitioners(Elsevier, 2017) Afful-Dadzie, E.,; Afful-Dadzie, A.Open Government Data (OGD) continues to receive considerable traction around the world. In particular, there have been a growing number of OGD establishments in the developed world, sparking expectations of similar trends in growing democracies. To understand the readiness of OGD stakeholders in Africa especially the media, this paper (1) reviews current infrastructure at OGD web portals in Africa and (2) conducts a preference elicitation analysis among media practitioners in 5 out of the 7 OGD country centers in Africa regarding desired structure of OGD in developing countries. The analysis gives a view of the relative importance media practitioners ascribe to a selected set of OGD attributes in anticipation of a more functional OGD in their respective countries. Using conjoint analysis, the result indicates that media practitioners put premium on ‘metadata’ and ‘data format’ respectively in order of importance. Results from the review also reveal that features of current OGD web portals in Africa are not consistent with the desired preferences of users. Overall, the study provides a general insight into media expectations of OGD in Africa, and also serves as a foundational knowledge for authorities and practitioners to manage expectations of the media in connection with OGD in Africa.Item Power generation capacity planning under budget constraint in developing countries(2017) Afful-Dadzie, A.,; Afful-Dadzie, E.,; Awudu, I.,; Banuro, J. K.This paper presents a novel multi-period stochastic optimization model for studying long-term power generation capacity planning in developing countries. A stylized model is developed to achieve three objectives: (1) to serve as a tool for determining optimal mix, size and timing of power generation types in the face of budget constraint, (2) to help decision makers appreciate the consequences of capacity expansion decisions on level of unserved electricity demand and its attendant impact on the national economy, and (3) to encourage the habit of periodic savings towards new generation capacity financing. The problem is modeled using a stochastic mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) technique under demand uncertainty. The effectiveness of the model, together with valuable insights derived from considering different levels of budget constraints are demonstrated using Ghana as a case study. The results indicate that at an annual savings equivalent to 0.75% of GDP, Ghana could finance the needed generation capacity to meet approximately 95% of its annual electricity demand between 2016 and 2035. Additionally, it is observed that as financial constraint becomes tighter, decisions on the mix of new generation capacities tend to be more costly compared to when sufficient funds are available.Item A TOPSIS Extension Framework for Re-Conceptualizing Sustainability Measurement.(Emerald Publishing Limited, 2016) Afful-Dadzie, A.,; Afful-Dadzie, E.,; Turkson, C.Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a sustainability measurement and scoring system for assessing the efforts of organizations at meeting sustainability targets. Using technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) as the basic framework, the proposed method incorporates all three sustainability dimensions – economic, environmental and social – to establish a threshold below which an organization is considered to have failed a sustainability test. In Addition, an introduction of a time-independent threshold enables a clearer comparison of performance of organizations over time. The proposed method includes plots for visualizing the sustainability performance of organizations under review. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed method first assigns target values to a hypothetical organization. TOPSIS is then used to generate composite scores in which the score of the hypothetical organization is set as the threshold below which organizations are deemed to have failed a sustainability test. Using the square of the closeness coefficient of TOPSIS, the final composite score is decomposed into three components to reflect the contribution of the three dimensions of sustainability to serve as a guide to determining which dimension to focus on for improvement. A relative comparison score is then proposed to track the performance of organizations over time. Findings – The proposed method with its ability to set a threshold is able to determine organizations that have passed a sustainability test from those that have failed. The tracking of organizational performance over time also serves to highlight progress being made by organizations to meet an agreed sustainability target. Results from the application of the proposed method for evaluating sustainability of banks under the three dimensions of sustainability highlight its practical applicability. The proposed method can also be applied to a wide range of comparison problems including make-or-by decisions and award selection. Practical implications – As most industries and organizations become conscious of the pressure to adopt sustainable practices, the proposed measuring system would help identify those that are meeting sustainability targets as well as to track their progress over time. Originality/value – Most sustainability measurement indicators rarely have thresholds to determine whether an organization has met or failed to meet a sustainability test other than ranking them from top to bottom. The proposed method provides a threshold as well as a procedure for tracking the sustainability performance of organizations over time.Item Tracking progress of African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) using fuzzy comprehensive evaluation methods.(2014) Afful-Dadzie, A.,; Afful-Dadzie, E.,; Nabareseh, S.,; Oplatkova, Z.K.,Purpose - This paper proposes a new assessment methodology for the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) using fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method and the Delphi technique. The proposed approach by its design simplifies the review processes and also quantifies the outcome of the assessment result for easier interpretation and benchmarking among member countries. The proposed hybrid method demonstrates how the subjective APRM thematic areas and their objectives can be efficiently tracked country by country while addressing the key identified challenges.Design/methodology/approach - Using a numerical example, a demonstration of how the APRM assessment could be carried is shown using the Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method (FCEM) and the Delphi Method. The APRM’s own thematic areas are used as the evaluation factors and the weights are assigned using Delphi technique. A novel remark set is constructed to linguistically describe the performance of a country against each or all of the thematic areas. Then in line with the maximum membership degree principle, the position of the maximum number would correspond to its respective remark element to indicate the level of performance. Findings - The result shows a hybrid method of FCEM and Delphi used to determine whether a member country has "Achieved, "On Track", "Very likely to be achieved", "Possible if some changes are made" or "Off-Track" on the four focus areas of the APRM. The method provides a well-organized way of tracking progress of member countries. It is also an ideal method of tracking progress of individual thematic areas and objectives. Moreover, the simplicity of the proposed method, the preciseness of the final result it generates and the clear interpretation of the result makes it a stronger alternative to the current approach for assessing member countries. Practical implications - The African Peer Review mechanism (APRM) is a respected body with the backing of the heads of state in Africa. As most African countries become conscious of the pressure to meet international standards as far as governance performance is concerned, this proposed assessment methodology if adopted would go a long way in improving performance evaluation on the continent. Originality/value - The proposed methodology is unique in its simplicity and its ability to evaluate any of the APRM thematic areas independent of the others. This means an overall performance can be tracked as well as that of individual evaluation factors.