Rafał Mierzwiak

The analysis of successors’ competencies in family enterprises with the use of grey system theory

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to analyse the relationships between the competency structure of the successors of family enterprises in Poland and dimensions like gender, self-awareness of development, taking their ideas into consideration in shaping the strategy of the firm and the size of the firm. Design/methodology/approach – Grey relational analysis was employed to analyse the empirical material in the paper. The results of the analysis served a more thorough qualitative analysis of the subject of the family enterprise successors’ competencies by comparing them to theoretical assumptions and other research within this scope. Findings – In the paper, the relation was shown between the structure of family firm successors’ competencies and the variables such as gender, development self-awareness, taking their ideas into consideration in shaping the strategy of the firm and the size of the firm. Research limitations/implications – The research was conducted in Poland and therefore its generalisati...

New axiomatic approach to the concept of grey information

Purpose Considering current development of Grey Systems Theory (GST), we can come up with the following thesis: practical applications are a dominant subject of research. Thus, what seems to be symptomatic for relatively young knowledge disciplines, the authors observe the presence of imbalance between the development of GST application tools and theory’s epistemological and methodological background. As for GST, epistemological and methodological problems are becoming visible especially in the issues of determining a clear criterion of demarcation of this kind of a theory from others. In other words, this problem can be reduced to the issue of a precise determination of what the category of a grey system and grey information is. This problem is of great importance for further development and popularisation of GST in the world of science. Realising its significance, the purpose of this paper is to create a general overview of Grey Systems epistemology and afterwards create axiomatic and formal frames for a category of greyness. Design/methodology/approach In order to achieve set goals, two research approaches were accepted. In the area of inference about epistemology of GST an approach characteristic of an analytical philosophy was used, whereas in the case of axiomatic and formal frames for a category of greyness the authors referred to terms of a set theory and the principles of a pragmatic logic. Findings The result of research is to formulate a concept of a grey system and a concept of grey information in the context of a process of cognition. Moreover, a function of greyness and other fundamental categories of GST will be defined in an axiomatic way. Originality/value The paper presents a new consistent frame for the issues of methodological and epistemological backgrounds of GST. An original concept is to refer in considerations to a newly proposed grey space. This space was used for a formal justification of such elementary categories as grey numbers, a weight function of whitenization or grey sequences. The value of achievements shown in the paper is underlined by the fact that proposed theoretical constructions require further development and they can potentially open up new research trends in the GST.

A Recommendation Algorithm Considering User Trust and Interest

A traditional collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm has problems with data sparseness, a cold start and new users. With the rapid development of social network and e-commerce, building the trust between users and user interest tags to provide a personalized recommendation is becoming an important research issue. In this study, we propose a probability matrix factorization model (STUIPMF) by integrating social trust and user interest. First, we identified implicit trust relationship between users and potential interest label from the perspective of user rating. Then, we used a probability matrix factorization model to conduct matrix decomposition of user ratings information, user trust relationship, and user interest label information, and further determined the user characteristics to ease data sparseness. Finally, we used an experiment based on the Epinions website’s dataset to verify our proposed method. The results show that the proposed method can improve the recommendation’s accuracy to some extent, ease a cold start and solve new user problems. Meanwhile, the STUIPMF approach, we propose, also has a good scalability.

Determining the Importance of the Criteria for Assessment of Sustainability in Remanufacturing Companies

The chapter presents a method for determining the importance of criteria for sustainability assessment in enterprises using so-called a preference analysis for the third Thurstone’s quarter. The proposed method of determining the validity is an alternative to the method of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The AHP method with a larger number of criteria becomes less useful because of the occurrence of importance blurring and the difficulty in maintaining coherence preference matrix. In the first part of the chapter, there are identified sustainability criteria related to remanufacturing companies, on the basis of the literature review. Moreover there is described a simplified procedure for determining the importance level of criteria for sustainability assessment using the preference analysis for the third Thurstone’s quarter. In the empirical part there are presented the results of research, which were conducted among experts.

The Mixed Method for Sustainability Assessment of Remanufacturing Process Using Grey Decision Making

Sustainability assessment is not an easy task especially in case of small and medium size remanufacturing companies. The remanufacturing process is characterized by high level of uncertainty regarding its timing, quality and quantity of its outputs. Our previous literature studies have showed that there is lack of a simple method for assessment of sustainability dedicated to SMEs in remanufacturing sector. The challenge is to combine the expert’s knowledge and the numerical data. The aim of this chapter is to present a mixed method for assessing the sustainability with the use of Grey Decision Making. The application of the Grey Decision Making (GDM) allows carrying out of the assessment process in a quantifiable way, even with uncertain and incomplete data. The proposed method aims to assess the class of the sustainability, to identify the weaknesses in current operations and then to facilitate making priorities for the improvements action which should to be taken in order to achieve a better sustainability class. The chapter presents also IT tools which was designed to facilitate the assessment process.

Application of the Grey Clustering Analysis Method in the Process of Taking Purchasing Decisions in the Welding Industry

The publication presents the results of analyses developed for supporting the process of purchasing materials in the manufacturing process in the welding industry. The principal research problem in the article was to select a minimum number of features essential in taking decisions related to purchasing fluxes for welding processes carried out using the SAW method. To this end, the Clusters of Grey Incidence procedure, developed as part of Grey System Theory, was used.

The Analysis of Barriers in Succession Processes of Family Business with the Use of Grey Incidence Analysis (Polish Perspective)

Abstract The article presents results of research on the identification and evaluation of barriers faced by successors in family businesses during the first process of succession. The analysis of empirical material used grey systems theory, which was considered as an equivalent for the analysis of small samples and qualitative research. While conducting the literature review and empirical study, the authors concentrated on (a) the identification of barriers in the development of family firms and (b) eliciting the perspective of the new generation of owners in family firms entering the succession process through an empirical analysis of the assessed level of risk in relationships with family and business.

Sustainability Classification for SMEs—A Guidance of Sustainability Assessment with the Use of Averaged Traits Quality Method

This chapter presents a method for aggregation of different indicators, which are relevant for sustainability assessment. The originality of the procedure relies on the use of Averaging Quality Rating method that was used on the level of indicators analysis for making them comparable despite different measurement method (qualitative or quantitative). It is suitable for small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs) where the information system is rather undeveloped.

Internet Support of a Reverse Logistics

The chapter concerns Polish Internet market of waste material exchanges. The authors pay attention to issues connected with B2B market, electronic exchanges, and reverse logistics. Connecting those three areas is a starting point to a study which consists in an identification of national waste material exchanges at the first stage, then their estimation according to 10 criteria, and determining strengths and weaknesses of the Internet waste material exchanges. These criteria include such areas like price lists, regulations, a level of a technical backup, multilingualism, and a possibility to use a trial version. According to accepted criteria, was made the characteristics of the Polish Internet waste material exchanges.