An extended Fuzzy-AHP approach to rank the influences of socialization-externalization-combination-internalization modes on the development phase

Continuous innovation intended to deliver products with new attributes is an imperative driver for organizations to remain competitive in today's fast changing market. A successful innovation is often associated with adoption and execution of all SECI (socialization-externalization-combination-internalization) modes of knowledge creation within any Product Development (PD) phase. This article is an attempt to argue with the general notion and to distinguish different PD phases' affinity corresponding to distinct SECI modes. In this regard, the paper proposes an extended Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (EFAHP) approach to determine the ranking in which any PD phase is influenced from SECI modes. In the EFAHP approach, the complex problem of knowledge creation is first itemized into a simple hierarchical structure for pairwise comparisons. Next, a triangular fuzzy number (TFN) concept is applied to capture the inherent vagueness in linguistic terms of a decision-maker. This paper recommends mapping TFNs with normal distributions about X-axis. This allows us to develop a mathematical formulation to estimate the degree of possibility (importance value) when two TFNs do not intersect with each other (current techniques in literature calculate this value as zero). In order to demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of the proposed EFAHP in ranking SECI modes, an empirical study of development phase is considered. Five criteria and their 19 sub-criteria for measuring the phase's performance are identified based on both an extensive discussion with subject matter experts and rigorous literature survey. After stringent analysis, we found that the mode that highly influenced the development phase is 'combination mode'. The article discusses the application of lean tools that can be employed to improve the knowledge creation process.