Intangibles mismeasurements, synergy, and accounting numbers : a note.

For the last two decades, authors (e.g. Ohlson, 1995; Lev, 2000, 2001) have regularly pointed out the enforcement of limitations by traditional accounting frameworks on financial reporting informativeness. Consistent with this claim, it has been then argued that accounting finds one of its major limits in not allowing for direct recognition of synergy occurring amongst the firm intangible and tangible items (Casta, 1994; Casta & Lesage, 2001). Although the firm synergy phenomenon has been widely documented in the recent accounting literature (see for instance, Hand & Lev, 2004; Lev, 2001) research hitherto has failed to provide a clear approach to assess directly and account for such a henceforth fundamental corporate factor. The objective of this paper is to raise and examine, but not address exhaustively, the specific issues induced by modelling the synergy occurring amongst the firm assets whilst pointing out the limits of traditional accounting valuation tools. Since financial accounting valuation methods are mostly based on the mathematical property of additivity, and consequently may occult the perspective of regarding the firm as an organized set of assets, we propose an alternative valuation approach based on non-additive measures issued from the Choquet's (1953) and Sugeno's (1997) framework. More precisely, we show how this integration technique with respect to a non-additive measure can be used to cope with either positive or negative synergy in a firm value-building process and then discuss its potential future implications for financial reporting.Financial reporting; accounting goodwill; assets synergy; non-additive measures; Choquet’s framework;

Synergy Modelling and Financial Valuation : the contribution of Fuzzy Integrals.

Les méthodes d’évaluation financière utilisent des opérateurs d’agrégation reposant sur les propriétés d’additivité (sommations, intégrales de Lebesgue). De ce fait, elles occultent les phénomènes de renforcement et de synergie (ou de redondance) qui peuvent exister entre les éléments d’un ensemble organisé. C’est particulièrement le cas en ce qui concerne le problème d’évaluation financière du patrimoine d’une entreprise : en effet, en pratique, il est souvent mis en évidence une importante différence de valorisation entre l’approche « valeur de la somme des éléments » (privilégiant le point de vue financier) et l’approche « somme de la valeur des différents éléments » (privilégiant le point de vue comptable). Les possibilités offertes par des opérateurs d’agrégation comme les intégrales floues (Sugeno, Grabisch, Choquet) permettent, au plan théorique, de modéliser l’effet de synergie. La présente étude se propose de valider empiriquement les modalités d’implémentation opérationnelle de ce modèle à partir d’un échantillon d’entreprises cotées ayant fait l’objet d’une évaluation lors d’une OPA.Financial valuation methods use additive aggregation operators. But a patrimony should be regarded as an organized set, and additivity makes it impossible for these aggregation operators to formalize such phenomena as synergy or mutual inhibition between the patrimony’s components. This paper considers the application of fuzzy measure and fuzzy integrals (Sugeno, Grabisch, Choquet) to financial valuation. More specifically, we show how integration with respect to a non additive measure can be used to handle positive or negative synergy in value construction.Fuzzy measure; Fuzzy integral; Aggregation operator; Synergy; Financial valuation;

Considering Interactions among Multiple Criteria for the Server Selection

Decision-making about server selection is one of the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) processes where interactions among criteria should be considered. The paper introduces and develops some solutions for considering interactions among criteria in the MCDM problems. In the frame procedure for MCDM by using the group of methods, based on assigning weights, special attention is given to the synthesis of the local alternatives’ values into the aggregate values where the mutual preferential independence between two criteria is not assumed. Firstly, we delineate how to complete the additive model into the multiplicative one with synergic and redundancy elements in the case that criteria are structured in one level and in two levels. Furthermore, we adapted the concept of the fuzzy Choquet integral to the multi-attribute value theory. Studying and comparing the results of the example case of the server selection obtained by both aggregation approaches, the paper highlights the advantages of the first one since it does not require from decision makers to determine the weights of all possible combinations of the criteria and it enables the further use of the most preferred MCDM methods

Combining user preferences and expert opinions: a criteria synergy-based model for decision making on the Web

Customers strongly base their e-commerce decisions on the opinions of others by checking reviews and ratings provided by other users. These assessments are overall opinions about the product or service, and it is not possible to establish why they perceive it as good or bad. To understand this “why”, it is necessary an expert’s analysis concerning the relevant factors of the product or service. Frequently, these two visions are not coincident and the best product for experts may not be the best one for users. For this reason, trustworthy decision-making methods that integrate the mentioned views are highly desirable. This article proposes a multi-criteria decision analysis model based on the integration of users’ preferences and experts’ opinions. It combines the majority’s opinion and criteria synergy to provide a unified perspective in order to support consumers’ ranking-based decisions in social media environments. At the same time, the model supplies useful information for managers about strengths and weaknesses of their product or service according to users’ experience and experts’ judgment. The aggregation processes and synergy criteria are modeled in order to obtain an adequate consensus mechanism. Finally, in order to test the proposed model, several simulations using hotel valuations are performed.Project UTN4058 of National Technological University (Argentine) Fellowship for Short Term Postdoctoral Stays at University of Malaga – International Campus of Excellence Andalucía Tec

A Fuzzy-based Framework to Support Multicriteria Design of Mechatronic Systems

Designing a mechatronic system is a complex task since it deals with a high number of system components with multi-disciplinary nature in the presence of interacting design objectives. Currently, the sequential design is widely used by designers in industries that deal with different domains and their corresponding design objectives separately leading to a functional but not necessarily an optimal result. Consequently, the need for a systematic and multi-objective design methodology arises. A new conceptual design approach based on a multi-criteria profile for mechatronic systems has been previously presented by the authors which uses a series of nonlinear fuzzy-based aggregation functions to facilitate decision-making for design evaluation in the presence of interacting criteria. Choquet fuzzy integrals are one of the most expressive and reliable preference models used in decision theory for multicriteria decision making. They perform a weighted aggregation by the means of fuzzy measures assigning a weight to any coalition of criteria. This enables the designers to model importance and also interactions among criteria thus covering an important range of possible decision outcomes. However, specification of the fuzzy measures involves many parameters and is very difficult when only relying on the designer's intuition. In this paper, we discuss three different methods of fuzzy measure identification tailored for a mechatronic design process and exemplified by a case study of designing a vision-guided quadrotor drone. The results obtained from each method are discussed in the end

Bipolar aggregation method for fuzzy nominal classification using Weighted Cardinal Fuzzy Measure (WCFM)

The issue of designing a procedure to assign objects (candidates, projects, decisions, options, etc.) characterized by multiple attributes or criteria to predefined classes characterized by fuzzyly defined multiple features, conditions or constraints, is considered in this paper. Such assignment problems are known in the literature as nominal or non ordered classification problems as opposed to ordinal classification in which case classes are ordered according to some desires of decision maker(s). Because of the importance of these problems in many domains such as social, economics, medical, engineering, mangement etc., there is a need to design sound and appropriate evaluation algorithms and methods to deal with them. In this paper we will consider an approach based on an evaluation strategy that consists in aggregating separately elements that act in the same sens (either contributing to the exlusion of a class from assignment or its consideration for inclusion given an object) that we refer to as bipolar analysis. Then, relying on the fact that elements to aggregate have synergetic relationships (they are complementary), we propose to use Choquet integral as the appropriate aggregation operator with a proposed fuzzy measure or capacity known as weighted cardinal fuzzy measure (WCFM) which tractability permits to overcome dificulties that dissuade the use of Choquet integral in practices. Furthermore, bipolar property results in evaluation by two degrees: classifiability measure that measures to what extent an object can be considered for inclusion in a class and rejectability measure, a degree that measures the extent to which one must avoid including an object to a class rendering final choice flexible as many classes may be qualified for inclusion of an object. Application of this approach to a real world problem in the domain of banking has shown a real potentiality

Decision-making in the manufacturing environment using a value-risk graph

A value-risk based decision-making tool is proposed for performance assessment of manufacturing scenarios. For this purpose, values (i.e. qualitative objective statements) and concerns (i.e. qualitative risk statements) of stakeholders in any given manufacturing scenario are first identified and are made explicit via objective and risk modeling. Next, performance and risk measures are derived from the corresponding objective and risk models to evaluate the scenario under study. After that, upper and lower bounds, and target value is defined for each measure in order to determine goals and constraints for the given scenario. Because of the multidimensionality nature of performance, the identified objectives and risks, and so, their corresponding measures are usually numerous and heterogeneous in nature. These measures are therefore consolidated to obtain a global performance indicator of value and global indicator of risk while keeping in views the inter-criteria influences. Finally, the global indicators are employed to develop minimum acceptable value and maximum acceptable risk for the scenario under study and plotted on the VR-Graph to demarcate zones of “highly desirable”, “feasible”, “and risky” as well as the “unacceptable” one. The global scores of the indicators: (value-risk) pair of the actual scenario is then plotted on the defined VR-Graph to facilitate decision-making by rendering the scenarios’ performance more visible and clearer. The proposed decision-making tool is illustrated with an example from manufacturing setup in the process context but it can be extended to product or systems evaluation

On the Choquet multiple criteria preference aggregation model: theoretical and practical insights from a real-world application

We consider the use of the Choquet integral for evaluating projects or actions in a real-world application starting from the case of the re-qualification of an abandoned quarry. Despite the Choquet integral being a very well-known preference model for which there is a rich and well developed theory, its application in a multiple criteria decision aiding perspective requires some specific methodological developments. This led us to work out and implement, in practice, two new procedures: A first procedure to build interval scales with the objective of assigning utility values on a common scale to the criteria performances, and a second one to construct a ratio scale for assigning numerical values to the capacities of the Choquet integral. This article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the Choquet integral as appearing in the case study, proposing as well insights related to the interaction of the experts within a focus grou