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A Model for Successor Selection and Training in the Family-Owned Traditional Manufacturing Businesses: Bi-fuzzy Approaches of Triangular Fuzzy and Single-Valued Neutrosophic Set

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Abstract

In the family-owned traditional manufacturing businesses, the intricate required competencies and traits of a successful successor resulting in ineffectual acquirement of competent successors could be regarded as one of the main reasons of predicament of inefficient succession. The issues of selecting and training a competent successor should be closely correlated with corporate sustainability and competitiveness of the industries. Nevertheless, in most previous studies, which were related to the successor selection or identification of critical indicators of competent successors, the data collections mainly relied on the subjective viewpoints, expressed in natural language, of shareholders/entrepreneurs. Thus, for the purposes of selecting competent successors, but rectifying the fuzziness and indeterminacy of information, which was generated by the natural language expressions, this study proposed a hybrid successor-selection and efficient successor-training model. The model simultaneously took the incompleteness, ambiguity, and non-concordance of information into consideration. First, based on an intensive literature review and the results of roundtable meetings, an evaluation framework was constructed. Second, under distinct circumstances with varied purposes, the single valued neutrosophic set and triangular fuzzy set technologies were respectively applied to quantify the incomplete, indeterminate and inconsistent information. Finally, Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL)-based analytic network process (ANP) with a modified VIKOR (DANP-mV) method was employed to proceed successor-selection evaluation and to develop an effective successor-training program. Additionally, to demonstrate the feasibility and validity of this model, an empirical study of successor selection for a business in the pulp industry was further conducted. The research results considerably benefit family-owned traditional manufacturing industries to develop a successor-selection plan, establish a systematic and efficacious successor-training program, and remedy the conundrum of inefficacious succession. Furthermore, this research considered the fuzziness and indeterminacy of language expression, the developed model could be expected to propose an optimal feasible decision-making scheme for the real world.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan

    Sun-Weng Huang & James Jiann-Haw Liou

  2. Graduate Institute of Urban Planning, National Taipei University, New Taipei, Taiwan

    Sun-Weng Huang & Gwo-Hshiung Tzeng

  3. Department of Marketing and Logistics, China University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan

    Sun-Weng Huang

  4. Department of International Business Administration, Chinese Culture University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Ching Ching Fang

  5. College of Economics and Management, Sanming University, Sanming, China

    Sun-Weng Huang

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  1. Ching Ching Fang
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Correspondence to James Jiann-Haw Liou.

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Fang, C.C., Huang, SW., Liou, J.JH. et al. A Model for Successor Selection and Training in the Family-Owned Traditional Manufacturing Businesses: Bi-fuzzy Approaches of Triangular Fuzzy and Single-Valued Neutrosophic Set. Int. J. Fuzzy Syst. 25, 1256–1274 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40815-022-01441-6

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