This paper presents the development of two of the eight indicators to evaluate the Country Wellbeing. We start from the Stiglitz document (2009) that for the first time puts a fixed point on what are the indicators that, aggregated, produces a multidimensional description of wellbeing that goes beyond GDP. Following the document indications, we present a fuzzy approach for this measure as a proposal that overcome the deficiencies that the usual statistical methods produce. The country we have in mind is Italy, but the instrument we propose is not calibrate on this country, but may be useful for every country that share the Stiglitz document indications. The fuzzy instrument we propose is a fuzzy inference system that, by its rule-blocks, let the possibility to use verbal judgement about the importance of one input respect the others.

È da molto tempo che gli studiosi di scienze sociali segnalano la necessità di un indicatore economico che vada oltre il concetto di PIL. Da più parti si propone di pensare questo indicatore come frutto dell’aggregazione di più indicatori che non tengano conto solo di aspetti economici, ma anche di altri, al fine di valutare la piena sostenibilità di un sistema economico. Lo studio di cui presentiamo la fase iniziale, prende lo spunto dal lavoro promosso ed avviato nel 2009: il Progetto “Oltre il PIL” che ha come obiettivo la revisione della misurazione tradizionale del benessere individuando nuovi indicatori al fine di fornire un supporto analitico alle scelte strategiche degli attori economici e delle istituzioni, per formulare politiche sostenibili in tema sociale, economico, fiscale e ambientale.

The “Solvency II” directive will be enforced starting from 2016. The insurance and reassurance companies have asked to reflect upon ways of adapting to the new rules and to consider value creation strategies under the new constraints. An Observatory was started for understanding how open Italian insurance companies are to change and how the announced rules influence the current operations. In order to monitor the behaviour of the companies over the years and evaluate the responsiveness to the new regulatory requirements of the Italian insurance Companies, a Fuzzy Expert System (FES) was developed. The objective of this work is to show the evaluation / monitoring tool created for the observatory. The special feature of the FES is to be created exclusively on judgments and not on objective data

The new impulse from European Commission’s “Beyond GDP” and the Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi’s report renewed the necessity to define new indicators of wellbeing that go beyond GDP, and increased the need of measuring complex dimensions of living not measurable with classical techniques. Concepts as quality of life, child well being, health are mediated by human perception and intangible evaluation. A fuzzy logic approach gives the opportunity to face these problems thanks to its capability to work in a framework of uncertainty, ambiguity and vague information, situations that are typical of social and human problems. This paper provides the results based on different socioeconomic surveys with the use of fuzzy logic.

The aim of this study is to propose a method to measure the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) identity (Otubanjo, 2013) of a firm. Using this method, based on a fuzzy logic expert system, it is possible to generate a comprehensive rating for the assessment of the sustainability of a firm. In fact, to ensure that a firm is CSR-compliant, it is important to express CSR principles in terms of measurable variables. Up to now, measurement has been hampered by a lack of clarity in theoretical frameworks and empirical methods for the CSR construct.

Purpose - The aim of this study is to propose a method to measure Intellectual Capital (IC) in firms involved in strategic alliances, an area that has received scant attention in the literature, as existing research is focused mainly on organizational level mainly and increasingly on macro-level unit such as regions or nations. There are very few works at the meso-level, (i.e. alliances, clusters), and the paper aims to fill this void, by providing researchers and practitioners with a tool capable of combining measurement and management aims, developed at organizational level with the active participation of the researchers. Design/methodology/approach – The method of analysis is based on a model formalized through a fuzzy expert system (FES). The FES are able to merge the capabilities of an expert system to simulate the decision-making process with the vagueness typical of human reasoning, maintaining the ability to still have a numeric value as a response. Its construction requires the participation of experts, whose knowledge of the problem is accumulated in the form of blocks of rules. These features make it possible to formalize the decision-making process related to the IC valuation, handling qualitative and quantitative variables, and exploring the cognitive mechanisms underlying this process. Originality/value – To the best of our knowledge, IC literature lacks methods expressly designed to measure the incremental value of IC originating from collaboration among firms. We think also that fuzzy logic methodology, recently applied in empirical work designed to evaluate IC, represents a reliable methodology because of the “fuzzy” nature of IC. This study contributes to the broadening of the research community’s understanding regarding the alternative measurement of IC created within strategic alliances. From a measurement perspective, the results may be regarded as valuable proof that IC performance within strategic alliances can be measured quantitatively. Practical implications – The outcome of the application is a system designed to measure the intangible performance deriving from participation in a strategic alliance. On the management side, the possibility of retracing the determinants of different IC intermediate indicators composing the final IC index allows strategic alliances managers to use this information for decision-making purposes.

In this paper we present a new general framework to face the problem of evaluating fuzzy quantities. A fuzzy quantity is a fuzzy set that may be non-normal and/or non-convex. It is based on the idea of “interval approximation of a fuzzy number”. The classical approach followed for fuzzy numbers is not pursuable in a fuzzy quantity context but anyway our proposal produces an interesting general formulation that offers the opportunity to create many different types of evaluations as it depends on several parameters.

After the 2008 global financial crisis and corporate scandals, assessing and improving corporate governance quality (CGQ) is essential. This paper proposes a different approach to evaluate CGQ, to overcome the conceptual and methodological limits of the previous rating systems. It tries to go beyond the objectives of the existing models by suggesting an alternative operating model, (aligned with the new CG guidelines) that provides a concise index for monitoring and decision-making. Using a Fuzzy Expert System (FES), the authors propose a formalized model that: (1) represents all the factors (structural and behavioral) that affect the quality of corporate governance in terms of practical and objective decision-making procedure; (2) is a flexible and useful management tool for supporting the ‘‘Board review’’ and assessing the increase in CGQ associated with particular decisions; (3) supervisors can use to assess CG adequacy by replacing or integrating the experts’ opinions with interviews/questionnaires filled in by directors and managers or through direct direct observation, as recently suggested by EBA/ESMA. This paper highlights the importance of behavioral features and group dynamics in corporate governance and represents them in an integrated model together with other structural and organizational elements.

In this paper we present a general framework to face the problem of evaluate fuzzy quantities. A fuzzy quantity is a fuzzy set that may be non normal and/or non convex. This new formulation contains as particular cases the ones proposed by Fortemps and Roubens (1996), Yager and Filev (1981,1999) and follows a completely different approach. It starts with idea of “interval approximation of a fuzzy number” proposed, e.g., in Chanas (2001), Grzegorzewski (2002,2012).

We deal with the problem of evaluating and ranking intuitionistic fuzzy quantitities (IFQs). We call IFQ an intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS) described by a pair of fuzzy quantities, where a fuzzy quantity is defined as the union of two, or more, convex fuzzy sets that may be non-normal. We suggest an evaluation defined by a pair index based on “value” & “ambiguity” and a ranking method based on them. This new formulation contains as particular cases the ones proposed by Fortemps and Roubens, Yager and Filev and follows a completely different approach.

A significant threat to the natural and cultural heritage of Mediterranean natural protected areas (NPAs) is related to uncontrolled fires that can cause potential damages related to the loss or a reduction of ecosystems. The assessment and mapping of the vulnerability to fire can be useful to reduce landscape damages and to establish priority areas where it is necessary to plan measures to reduce the fire vulnerability. To this aim, a methodology based on an interactive computer-based system has been proposed in order to support NPA's management authority for the identification of vulnerable hotspots to fire through the selection of suitable indicators that allow discriminating different levels of sensitivity (e.g. Habitat relevance, Fragmentation, Fire behavior, Ecosystem Services, Vegetation recovery after fire) and stresses (agriculture, tourism, urbanization). In particular, a multi-criteria analysis based on Fuzzy Expert System (FES) integrated in a GIS environment has been developed in order to identify and map potential “hotspots” of fire vulnerability, where fire protection measures can be undertaken in advance. In order to test the effectiveness of this approach, this approach has been applied to the NPA of Torre Guaceto (Apulia Region, southern Italy). The most fire vulnerable areas are the patch of century-old forest characterized by high sensitivity and stress, and the wetlands and century-old olive groves due to their high sensitivity. The GIS fuzzy expert system provides evidence of its potential usefulness for the effective management of natural protected areas and can help conservation managers to plan and intervene in order to mitigate the fire vulnerability in accordance with conservation goals.

The aim of this study is to propose a method to evaluate the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) identity of a firm. Using this method, based on a fuzzy expert system (FES), it is possible to generate a comprehensive rating for the assessment of the sustainability of a firm. Up to now, measurement has been hampered by a lack of clarity in theoretical frameworks and empirical methods for the Corporate Social Responsibility construct. The algorithm of the Fuzzy Expert System aggregates multicriteria evaluations of a problem. The assessments of behavior and the resulting decisions are represented in blocks of rules, drawn up by an inference engine in fuzzy logic. The Fuzzy Expert System unites the ability of an expert system to simulate the decision-making process with the uncertainty typical of human reasoning, present in fuzzy logic. Despite the spread of Corporate Social Responsibility practices among firms, there is not a commonly accepted method of measuring sustainability. Moreover, although Environmental social governance (ESG) rating agencies provide Corporate Social Responsibility ratings, their methods have certain weaknesses. Considering the growing importance of socially responsible financial markets, this topic could be of vital importance for decision-makers in the management of their investments, by remedying deficiencies in methods used by sustainability rating organizations. The outcome of the application is a system designed to measure the CSR identity of a firm. On the management side, the possibility to identify the determinants of the different Corporate Social Responsibility intermediate indicators making up the final Corporate Social Responsibility index would allow CSR-compliant managers to use this information for decision-making purposes

This paper wants to provoke the people showing a new research field of application of Soft Computing Techniques. In this case we propose Fuzzy Inference Systems. This type of approach has never been applied to problems of International affairs or to Intelligence and Security. This research is proposed by a research Centre on Fuzzy Logic born at Link Campus University in Rome*. The problem we face is connected with what happened in Mediterranean sea under the denomination of "Arab Spring". Our idea is to build a Fuzzy Inference System, which not only describe but is also able to monitor what it is happening in an area that is complex for the connection among many countries which are different for cultures, religions and economic factors. This new instrument can help either International Organizations and local authorities to have a more clear idea of what is really happening. The final goal is always the maintain peace and to work for a well-timed diplomatic intervention to avoid that the situation crashes in a war. We have started with Lybian situation to get to a more general painting of any country in the same area.

Purpose – This study aims to build and test an International Market Selection (IMS) decision process method that is able to capture, within a small firm’s risk-averse setting, the entrepreneur's experience, reduce cognitive biases, and preserve the flexibility of the decision, by combining the advantages of systematic and behavioural-based international market selection approaches. Design/methodology/approach – The unit of analysis is the IMS decision process of a small firm venturing abroad. We adopt a ranking approach based on three-step screening. We assess the markets through a multi-criteria approach with a wider set of variables aggregated within a tree-shaped model. To obtain the ranking, we use a Fuzzy Expert System (FES) as an evaluative tool. Findings – The results show that the proposed decision method is consistent with the entrepreneur’s strategic orientation and experience, while preserving the flexibility requested for decision-making in small firms. Unlike traditional behavioural IMS approaches, the method demonstrates an ability to reduce the cognitive biases associated with the use of a limited set of variables and unreliable evaluation models. Research limitations/implications – The single-case-study approach limits generalization of the findings. Practical implications – The proposed methodology helps the decision-maker to improve the quality of the IMS decision by reducing the effect of cognitive biases that usually affect traditional behavioural models. Originality/value – For the first time, a decision-process methodology based on an FES is applied to a small firm’s IMS problem.

Nell’economia attuale, la competitività delle imprese e, più in generale, di qualunque sistema organizzativo, non si fonda solo sui tradizionali beni tangibili e sui capitali finanziari, ma in via preponderante sulle risorse cognitive ed intangibili, in grado di garantire differenziali competitivi sostenibili e duraturi (Cañibano et al., 2000; Lev 2001; Donna, 1999; Zambon, 2003; Fabbrini e Ricciardi, 2007). Di conseguenza, la misurazione e gestione del capitale intellettuale (CI) è divenuta sempre più critica (Veltri, 2007; Comuzzi et al., 2009) . Sebbene il concetto di CI sia stato originariamente sviluppato come framework per analizzare il contributo delle risorse intellettuali nelle imprese, tale approccio ha dimostrato di avere validità generale in termini di applicabilità a diversi contesti organizzativi ed industriali, tra cui il settore pubblico e non profit (Agor, 1997; Mouritsen et al., 2004; Serrano Cinca et al., 2003; Carlin et al., 2005; Bueno Campos et al., 2006; Kong e Prior, 2008). Esiste un crescente interesse nell’applicare l’approccio basato sul CI per gestire le università, in quanto organizzazioni che investono soprattutto in ricerca e risorse umane, ed i cui principali obiettivi sono la produzione e diffusione della conoscenza (Leitner and Warden, 2004; Sanchez et al., 2009). In aggiunta, le università sono sempre più considerate attori chiave nel più ampio movimento verso un’economia sempre più globale e basata sulla conoscenza. Tale circostanza ha spinto alcuni organismi sopranazionali a promuovere la diffusione della gestione del CI nelle università. A livello europeo, nel 2002 la European Association of Research, Managers and Administrators (EARMA) in collaborazione con l’European Centre for Strategic Management of Universities (ESMU) ha lanciato l’iniziativa relativa alla gestione del CI nelle università e nei centri di tecnologia e ricerca (Leitner, 2005); nel 2006 il gruppo di esperti selezionati da gruppi di ricerca, aziende ed autorità pubblica dal Direttorato Generale della Commissione Europea al fine di promuovere la rendicontazione del CI nelle piccole e medie imprese tecnologiche, ha prodotto un report (Ricardis report, 2006) nel quale incoraggia le università, attori centrali nella attuale società della conoscenza, a prendere parte attiva al processo di sviluppo di una cultura di rendicontazione del CI. D’altro canto, le spinte ad una introduzione della gestione delle risorse intangibili arrivano anche “dal basso”: la crescente domanda degli stakeholder per una maggiore trasparenza degli atenei nell’utilizzo dei fondi, la crescente competizione tra le università e il riconoscimento a livello centrale di una loro maggiore autonomia, che si sono registrate negli ultimi anni a livello europeo, sono tutti fattori che spingono le università verso l’adozione di nuovi sistemi di gestione e rendicontazione, che dovranno necessariamente incorporare gli intangibili (Sanchez et al., 2009). Nella letteratura del CI, in linea generale due sono i principali filoni di ricerca emersi nelle scorse decadi, uno più orientato alla misurazione, l’altro più orientato alla gestione (Roos et al., 1999). L’approccio orientato alla misurazione si propone di valutare il CI sotto un profilo quantitativo. L’approccio gestionale si basa su modelli preferibilmente qualitativi di misurazione del CI e si focalizza sull’utilità dello stesso nei processi di decision making. L’articolo in oggetto si colloca nell’approccio misurazionale, che tuttavia integra con quello gestionale per la natura qualitativa degli indicatori utilizzati nel modello. Applicando un approccio fuzzy logic, l’articolo si propone di presentare una modalità differente per determinare un indice complessivo del CI. La logica fuzzy viene utilizzata come sistema logico sottostante il sistema esperto fuzzy (FES) elaborato ad hoc per la misurazione del CI delle u

In regard to the LEADER program (European Union initiative for rural development), in the paper the authors propose a model for assessing the governance system of Local Action Groups (LAGs) in terms of structure, decision making processes and principles that ensure a clear and transparent activity thus creating significant value for the community. Governance, in particular, is a highly important theme when it evaluates the impacts of LEADER measures: if the quality of their governance is high, they could contribute to make the rural development process more efficient in each region of EU. The empirical literature on this subject is not well developed and the authors hope and expect that this new assessment model will produce important ideas for making governance of the LAGs more effective. It is based on a Fuzzy Expert System and here are presented results for Puglia (Italy) LAGs.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a method to measure intellectual capital (IC) in firms involved in strategic alliances, an area that has received scant attention in the literature, as existing research is focused mainly on organizational level mainly and increasingly on macro-level unit such as regions or nations. There are very few works at the meso-level (i.e. alliances, clusters), and the paper aims to fill this void, by providing researchers and practitioners with a tool capable of combining measurement and management aims, developed at organizational level with the active participation of the researchers. Design/methodology/approach – The method of analysis is based on a model formalized through a fuzzy expert system (FES). The FES are able to merge the capabilities of an expert system to simulate the decision-making process with the vagueness typical of human reasoning, maintaining the ability to still have a numeric value as a response. Its construction requires the participation of experts, whose knowledge of the problem is accumulated in the form of blocks of rules. These features make it possible to formalize the decision-making process related to the IC valuation, handling qualitative and quantitative variables, and exploring the cognitive mechanisms underlying this process. Findings – The outcome of the application is a system designed to measure the intangible performance deriving from participation in a strategic alliance using FES. This study contributes to the broadening of the research community’s understanding regarding the alternative measurement of IC created within strategic alliances.

The main aim of this study is to find a method to measure the intellectual capital (IC) of an organization which is able to combine management and measurement views, to reflect the newest concepts regarding IC, and to take into consideration the “vague” interactions between IC categories. We posit the idea that a Fuzzy Expert System (FES) model can address these issues, since it takes account of the qualitative nature of most IC indicators and the different IC subcategories. The main advantage of an IC score developed through a FES model is to provide a reliable IC index. The model presented in this article applied to data derived from the Austrian universities’ IC reports is a pilot model, sufficiently flexible for individual adaptations and adjustments. The main limitation of the study is that further tests can be carried out only in the presence of available and comparable IC data which are currently not available.

The aim of this paper is to propose a model for the evaluation of the multidimensional performance of an inter-museum network. It is, in fact, already acknowledged that evaluating the management of a museum-type institution is not easy, as, in order to measure its social and cultural efficacy, qualitative-type indicators are required. For this reason, the use of a fuzzy logic expert system can prove extremely useful since, in the process of evaluating a given phenomenon, it takes account of input variables not only of a quantitative but also of a qualitative kind.

The aim of this paper is to present a brief sketch of what has been a wide project funded by the Puglia region with a group of researchers at the University of Salento. The purpose of the project was to provide three indexes that are based on the principle of sustainability and gender equality as a new tool to address public policies. Here we will focus our attention on one particular index definition and evaluation in a fuzzy way. This index we named Life would offer, in an aggregated way, an evaluation of the connection between quality of daily work and life.

This paper follows in the study of the building of children' social interaction with parents using the capability approach. Parents' role in child well being is well documented by evolutionary psychology and psychoanalysis, here we will try to put in relation and to come to a measure of different factors that can affect its development. We propose a fuzzy expert system to measure this capability both at a theoretical and empirical level. The applied part of the paper use a data set based on a matched data source of ISTAT (Italian National Statistical Office 2008) multipurpose survey on family and on children condition in Italy to recover information on children’s education, the socio-demographic structure of their families, child care provided by relatives and parents according to the type of activities in which the children are involved, and Bank of Italy Survey on household income and wealth year 2008 (SHIW08) to control how family income may enter in the final evaluation This is one step of a more complex system allowing for a richer set of indicators and of dimension of child well being as well as for their interaction.

This paper follows in the study of the building of children' social interaction with parents using the capability approach. Parents' role in child well being is well documented by evolutionary psychology and psychoanalysis, here we will try to put in relation and to come to a measure of different factors that can affect its development. We propose a fuzzy expert system to measure this capability both at a theoretical and empirical level. The applied part of the paper use a data set based on a matched data source of ISTAT (Italian National Statistical Office 2008) multipurpose survey on family and on children condition in Italy to recover information on children’s education, the socio-demographic structure of their families, child care provided by relatives and parents according to the type of activities in which the children are involved, and Bank of Italy Survey on household income and wealth year 2008 (SHIW08) to control how family income may enter in the final evaluation This is one step of a more complex system allowing for a richer set of indicators and of dimension of child well being as well as for their interaction.