Applications of axiomatic fuzzy set clustering method on management strategic analysis

In this paper, first the axiomatic fuzzy set (AFS) clustering method [X.D. Liu, W. Wang, T.Y. Chai, The fuzzy clustering analysis based on AFS theory, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics Part B 35 (5) (2005) 1013–1027] is investigated further by improving the algorithm to be more applicable, then it is used to analyze the evaluation results of 30 companies which have been studied and analyzed by G.-S. Liang et al. [G.S. Liang, T.Y. Chou, T.C. Han, Cluster analysis based on fuzzy equivalence relation, European Journal of Operational Research 166 (2005) 160–171]. Compared with Liang’s algorithm, the proposed method is more transparent, understandable and interpretable. This method can be applied to the management strategic analysis based on the datasets described by mixed features such as real numbers, Boolean logical values, linguistic descriptions. The illustrative examples show that the interpretations of the clustering results of the 30 companies are almost consistent with the expert’s intuitions.