The term innovation which is about the novelty on products, processes, services, technologies, on strategies or organizational structures is important for companies to stay in the competition and run their businesses well to gain both financial and organizational achievements. By the changing and globalizing world, innovation may require some interaction and cooperation which is called open innovation. In this research, five factors including brainstorming, feedback, benchmarking, open-minded mentality and relationship with supply chain elements triggering open innovation are investigated and ranked by one of the multi-criteria decision making models called ELECTRE III according to two criteria of inbound and outbound innovations.

Ranking the companies can be a useful guide for investors to select an optimum portfolio. Tehran stock exchange (TSE) uses liquidity criterion to rank the companies; however, this study shows that preferences of investors, the criteria they use to evaluate companies’ performances, and the extent to which ranking of companies based on investors’ criteria are in line with the ranking announced by the stock exchange. Since the criteria used for ranking the companies are various and often conflicting and because each multiple criteria technique has its own specific characteristics, various rankings are offered. Therefore, it is required to utilize multiple criteria decision making models to avoid confusion of investors. For this purpose, some companies were selected from 50 top companies listed in 2011 in TSE, which maintained the reliability of their ranks and finally, 20 companies were selected and were ranked based on investors’ criteria using EECTRE III Technique. The obtained ranking was then compared with the ranking offered by stock exchange. Research results indicate that ELECTRE III technique was a useful and efficient method to select a portfolio. Moreover, value-based criteria as well as accounting criteria are suitable and useful bases for investors to select a portfolio.

Selection of suitable weapon for armed forces is one of the most complex decisions, which must be taken by martial administrators. The procedure of decision making on weapon selection is integrated with various criteria, which are often in conflict. This paper presents a multi criteria decision making problem based on the implementation of ELECTRE III technique. The proposed model compares all acceptable choices based on a systematic and sophisticated procedure and provides some efficient solutions. The implementation of the proposed model is demonstrated for an infantry rifle selection. The proposed model, first, determines acceptable choices and criteria through Simos method and then it uses ELECTRE III to rank various alternatives. The result of the application of the proposed model for a real-world case study of choosing an infantry rifle indicates its effectiveness.

During the past few decades, many organizations have attempted to increase their productivity
through outsourcing parts of their responsibilities. Outsourcing helps firms reduce their low
value added activities and focus on their high value added activities. It also helps organization
save their time and energy which leads to more efficient units. The idea of outsourcing is more
important for project based organizations where the nature of works is different from a
particular project to another one. This paper presents an integrated balanced score card system
with an adaptation of ELECTRE III method to select suitable resources for outsourcing. The
proposed model of the paper is implemented for a case study of subway system in Iran and the
results are discussed.

The new millennium must be called the century to compete for survival. The increase
interaction among international organizations has changed the world into a global village and
firms have no choice but to develop a variety of instruments and equipments to compete with
each other. Value engineering (VE) is one of the new techniques of management science
emerged in using the power of organizational creativity and entrepreneurship programs. VE
modifies the organizational activities, removes the non value-added activities and increases the
current values of organizations. VE has been successfully implemented in many areas of
management such as quality, productivity, project management, etc. The success of a VE
program depends on many organizational factors such as the availability of resources, the
strategy and the organization structure, the senior management support, the organizational
culture and the communication and information systems. In this study, we identify and
prioritize organization factors affecting the implementation of VE using ELECTRE III method.

The Electre III is a widely accepted multi attribute decision making model, which takes into account the uncertainty and vagueness. Uncertainty concept in Electre III is introduced by indifference, preference and veto thresholds, but sometimes determining their accurate values can be very hard. In this paper we represent the values of performance matrix as interval numbers and we define the links between interval numbers and concordance matrix .Without changing the concept of concordance, in our propose concept, Electre III is usable in decision making problems with interval numbers.