A Hybrid MCDM Model for Evaluating Strategic Alliance Partners in the Green Biopharmaceutical Industry

Mu-Hsin Chang, James J. H. Liou and Huai-Wei Lo
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Mu-Hsin Chang: Graduate Institute of Industrial and Business Management, National Taipei University of Technology, 1, Sec. 3, Zhongxiao E. Rd., Taipei 10608, Taiwan
James J. H. Liou: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Taipei University of Technology, 1, Sec. 3, Zhongxiao E. Rd., Taipei 10608, Taiwan
Huai-Wei Lo: Graduate Institute of Industrial and Business Management, National Taipei University of Technology, 1, Sec. 3, Zhongxiao E. Rd., Taipei 10608, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 15, 1-20

Abstract: Since the rise of strategic alliances which play such an important role in industry today, the biopharmaceutical industry worldwide has entered an era of rapid change and collaborative thinking. The strategic alliance is one of the most important strategies for the green biopharmaceutical industry. Member organizations in these alliances work together to create more advantageous biotechnologies based on environmental protection to achieve mutual benefits. In the past, there have been only a few studies discussing partner evaluations and the selection process for the green biopharmaceutical industry, so the criteria or indicators are still not complete. Therefore, this study proposes a novel multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework for strategic alliance partner evaluation that combines the best-worst method (BWM) and the fuzzy TOPSIS technique based on the concept of aspiration level (called fuzzy TOPSIS-AL) to evaluate the performance and priority rankings of strategic alliance partners. The BWM overcomes the shortcomings of small sample sizes and streamlines the number of conventional pairwise comparisons needed. The fuzzy TOPSIS-AL technique introduces the concept of the aspiration level, thereby leading to more reasonable suggestions for improvement. In addition, data from a multinational green biopharmaceutical company survey are utilized to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the proposed model.

Keywords: MCDM; BWM; fuzzy TOPSIS; aspiration level; strategic alliance partner; biopharmaceutical (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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