Title: An integrated analytical framework based on fuzzy DEMATEL and fuzzy ANP for competitive market strategy selection

Authors: Mohamad H. Gholami; Mirmehdi Seyyed-Esfahani

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: Selection of an appropriate competitive market strategy is inevitable for firms to create value for customers and consequently to achieve competitive advantage over their competitors. However, selection of such strategy is not straightforward because it requires considering numerous factors including internal and external factors that affect the firm's performance and assessing the complex relationships between them. This study considers the selection of the best competitive market strategy as a multiple criteria decision making problem and proposes an integrated framework on the basis of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm as internal factors (firm-level analysis) and Porter's competitive forces as external factors (industry-level analysis). The aim of the current study is to propose a systematic decision support framework integrating the RBV of the firm and Porter's industry analysis to select the best competitive market strategy that can enhance the competitive advantage of a firm.

Keywords: competitive market strategy; resource-based view; RBV; Porter's competitive forces; Porter's generic strategies; fuzzy decision making trial and evaluation laboratory; fuzzy DEMATEL; fuzzy analytic network process; fuzzy ANP.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2019.097736

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2019 Vol.31 No.2, pp.137 - 167

Accepted: 13 Jan 2017
Published online: 07 Feb 2019 *

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