Title: A fuzzy DEMATEL approach based on intuitionistic fuzzy information for evaluating knowledge transfer effectiveness in GSD projects

Authors: Arun Kumar Sangaiah; Xiao-Zhi Gao; Muthu Ramachandran; Xinliang Zheng

Addresses: School of Computing Science and Engineering, VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Aalto University, Aalto, Finland ' School of Computing and Creative Technologies, Leeds Beckett University, UK ' Department of Computer Science and Information Technologies, Frostburg State University, USA

Abstract: The offshore/onsite teams' effectiveness of knowledge transfer is significantly measured by various kinds of factors. In this paper, we propose a knowledge transfer (KT) assessment framework which integrates four criteria for evaluating the KT effectiveness of GSD teams. These are: knowledge, team, technology, and organisation factors. In this context, we present a fuzzy DEMATEL approach for assessing GSD teams KT effectiveness based on intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (IFNs). In this approach, decision makers provide their subjective judgments on the criteria, characterised on the basis of intuitionistic fuzzy sets. Moreover, intuitionistic fuzzy sets used in the fuzzy DEMATEL approach can effectively assess the KT effectiveness criteria and rank the alternatives. Subsequently, the entire process is illustrated with GSD teams' KT evaluation criteria samples, and the factors are ranked using fuzzy linguistic variables which are mapped to IFNs. Afterwards, the IFNs are converted into their corresponding basic probability assignments (BPAs) and then the Dempster-Shafer theory is used to combine the group decision making process. Besides, illustrative applicability and usefulness of the proposed approach in group decision making process for the evaluation of multiple criteria under fuzzy environment has been tested by software professionals at Inowits Software Organisation in India.

Keywords: knowledge transfer assessment; global software development; GSD teams; intuitionistic fuzzy sets; IFS; fuzzy DEMATEL; basic probability assignments; BPAs; Dempster-Shafer theory; effectiveness evaluation; group decision making; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICA.2015.073006

International Journal of Innovative Computing and Applications, 2015 Vol.6 No.3/4, pp.203 - 215

Received: 24 Feb 2015
Accepted: 14 Jul 2015
Published online: 11 Nov 2015 *

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