An analytic hierarchy process approach with linguistic variables for selection of an R&D strategic alliance partner

This study establishes a mechanism for partner selection that emphasizes the relation of criteria and motivation. Since the motivations for establishing strategic alliances follow different enterprises' needs, attempting to identify universal criteria weights that enterprises should employ when seeking a proper partner are not productive. Consequently, the weighting process for criteria must consider the intensity of motivations for establishing the alliance. When evaluating companies with closer levels of performance, the approach of pair-wise comparison is more suitable than the direct scoring method. Considering the strategic level, most comparisons may be vague and linguistic variables defined as fuzzy numbers are applied to this situation. The calculation procedure for the weighting and evaluation processes under a vague environment is proposed and validated by using an illustrative example.