An integrated fuzzy analytical network process for prioritization of new technology-based firms at Iranian Marine Industrial Business Incubator

The performance evaluation and prioritization of knowledge-based firms activating in science and technology parks will help the decision makers (DMs) to specify the benchmarks (the best firms) and grant them or help other firms to improve their performance. In this paper, the performance of new technology-based firms (NTBFs) is evaluated through a multi-criteria decision making method. To do so, at first the most suitable criteria to assess the performance of the NTBFs are proposed accordingto the literature and experts’ opinions. Then, due to complex relation and correlation between the presented criteria, an integrated fuzzy Analytical Network Process (ANP) is proposed to evaluate NTBFs under uncertainty of evaluation parameters. The proposed integrated approach is applied in areal case of science and technology parks in Iran, Iranian Marine Industrial Business Incubator

Keywords:

New Technology-based Firms , Science and Technology Parks , Analytical Network Process (ANP) , Fuzzy Set Theory , Performance evaluation and prioritization