Partner selection in Virtual enterprises using the Interval Neutrosophic fuzzy approach

Abstract

With the rapid development of the Internet, information technology, and globalization of
the economy, Some small and medium-sized companies know that they cannot compete with their
limited capacity alone. As a result, they are beginning to seek collaboration and a collective
approach to meet the dynamic needs of customers and increase their power for competition in the
market. Virtual enterprise is a temporary platform for working with different companies that share
their core tasks to meet customer’s demand. Partner selection is a major issue in the formation of a
virtual organization. This is especially difficult due to the uncertainties regarding information,
market dynamics, customer expectations, and rapidly changing technology, with highly random
decision making. As a generalization of fuzzy sets and intuitionistic fuzzy sets, Neutrosophic sets
are created to show the uncertain, and inconsistent information available in the real world. The
main purpose of this paper is to identify and select partners in the formation of Virtual Enterprises
under uncertainty and contradictory factors using the extended VIKOR group decision making
technique using the Interval Neutrosophic fuzzy approach. For this purpose, after identifying the
factors affecting partner selection, the factors are weighted using the Maximizing deviation method
and the partners are ranked using this method. Finally, a sensitivity analysis for assessing the
validity of the method is also presented. The results show that the Willingness to share information
criterion is the most important partner selection criterion in this enterprise.