Processing Imprecise Knowledge for Innovation Variants Evaluation Using Fuzzy TOPSIS

Abstract

It is unusually difficult to develop and implement management procedures during the early stages of innovation process. This results from uncertainty, imprecision and incomplete access to information on business benefits and innovation potential. This article shows how to overcome difficulties in estimating profitability of innovations based on the example of the biggest theme park in Poland. Park managers co-operate with different environments such as: Research, education and self-governing bodies, thanks to which, they gain many original ideas. This includes concepts concerning products, marketing and organisational solutions. A problem arises when indicating innovation variations that were meant to be developed and implemented. This requires the estimation of two factors: (1) the potential of innovations understood as benefits resulting from increase of the attractiveness of the offer and (2) the difficulty in implementing innovations that are related to risk (e.g. financial). The procedures that can perform these types of estimates have been developed and implemented. The assessment of innovation potential is made on the basis of focus studies that are conducted on groups of clients such as: Teachers, parents and youth. The estimation of difficulty in implementation is based on expert judgment. The acquired information is imprecise in both cases. Moreover it includes evaluation in terms on several criteria. The aim of the article is to present an approach to capturing and aggregating knowledge that allows the evaluation of innovation variants in terms of value for organisation. The essence of this approach is taking advantage of the fuzzy TOPSIS method to evaluation of innovation variants. It is discussed in detail on the example reproduced in this article. Thanks to the presented approach, the use of imprecise knowledge to analyse and compare innovation variants can be systematised by using them in a spreadsheet. The contribution of the research in theory refers to knowledge representation and reasoning in innovation process management. In the practical dimension, the proposed approach is a scheme for analyse and evaluate innovation variants.