A Multi-Criteria Reference Point Based Approach for Assessing Regional Innovation Performance in Spain

Ana Garcia-Bernabeu, José Manuel Cabello and Francisco Ruiz
Additional contact information
Ana Garcia-Bernabeu: Department of Economy and Social Sciences, Campus of Alcoi, Universitat Politècnica de València, 03801 Alcoi, Spain
José Manuel Cabello: Department of Applied Economics (Mathematics), Universidad de Málaga, 29071 Málaga, Spain
Francisco Ruiz: Department of Applied Economics (Mathematics), Universidad de Málaga, 29071 Málaga, Spain

Mathematics, 2020, vol. 8, issue 5, 1-21

Abstract: The evaluation of regional innovation performance through composite innovation indices can serve as a valuable tool for policy-making. While discussion on the best methodology to construct composite innovation indices continues, we are interested in deepening the use of reference levels and the aggregation issue. So far, additive aggregation methods are, largely, the most widespread aggregation rule, thus allowing for full compensability among single indicators. In this paper, we present an integrated assessment methodology to evaluate regional innovation performance using the Multi-Reference Point based Weak and Strong Composite Indicator (MRP-WSCI) approach, which allows defining reference levels and different degrees of compensability. As an example of application to the Regional Innovation Scoreboard, the proposed technique is developed to measure the innovation performance of Spain’s regions taking into account Spanish and European reference levels. The main features of the proposed approach are: (i) absolute or relative reference levels could be previously defined by the decision maker; (ii) by establishing the reference levels, the resulting composite innovation index is an easy-to-interpret measure; and (iii) the non-compensatory strong composite indicator provides an additional layer of information for policy-making (iv) a visualization tool called Light-Diagram is proposed to track the specific strengths and weaknesses of the regions’ innovation performance.

Keywords: regional innovation; composite indices; multi-criteria decision making; multi-reference point scheme; compensability; visualization tools (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/8/5/797/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/8/5/797/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:8:y:2020:i:5:p:797-:d:358106

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

More articles in Mathematics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().