This research presents a short review of Multiple Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods and research in various fields, including marketing and business management. The academic literature shows that MCDM methods in the area of marketing are used by academics to solve problems related to the positioning of products and services, market segmentation, brand management, promotion and advertising strategies, product development and market entry strategies, customer relationship marketing and channel distribution. With regard to business and management domains they are used to prioritize various decision-making aspects, like project assessments, resource allocation, strategic planning, risk management, performance evaluation, supplier and vendor selection, human resource management and strategic investment decisions. We can claim that in both domains, MCDM brings a systematic and transparent approach to decision-making, helping marketing managers to make more informed and objective choices. In summary, the continual refinement of these methods and the integration of cutting-edge technologies hold promise for further enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of decision-making processes in the dynamic landscape of business and management. Further, the analysis highlights emerging trends and challenges for the future of MCDM research.

Industry 4.0 encourages industries to digitise the manufacturing system to facilitate human-robot collaboration (HRC) to foster efficiency, agility and resilience. This cutting-edge technology strikes a balance between fully automated and manual operations to maximise the benefits of both humans and assistant robots (known as cobots) working together on complicated and prone-to-hazardous tasks in a collaborative manner in an assembly system. However, the introduction of HRC poses a significant challenge for assembly line balancing since, besides typical assigning tasks to workstations, the other two important decisions must also be made regarding equipping workstations with appropriate cobots as well as scheduling collaborative tasks for workers and cobots. In this article, the cobot assembly line balancing problem (CoALBP), which just initially emerged a few years ago, is thoroughly reviewed. The 4M1E (i.e., man, machine, material, method and environment) framework is applied for categorising the problem to make the review process more effective. All of the articles reviewed are compared, and their key distinct features are summarised. Finally, guidelines for additional studies on the CoALBP are offered.

This study explores the impacts of participatory design (PD) on data-driven decision-making (DDDM) in organisations. Despite the extensive examination of PD and DDDM individually, there is a dearth of research in understanding their integration and their impact on decision-making processes in organisations. This research aims to fill this gap by investigating the potential impacts, challenges, benefits, and critical success factors associated with the incorporation of PD activities into DDDM. The study employs a systematic literature review methodology to provide a comprehensive understanding of the topic. The paper provides a research agenda for future researchers as well as discussing best practices for organizations seeking to optimise their data driven decision-making processes in a participatory manner. The research also discussed the ethical implications of data-driven decision-making. Ultimately, this research advances our understanding of how PD and DDDM can be effectively combined to achieve better decision-making outcomes.

Hybrid flowshop scheduling problem (HFSP) is a mixture of two classical scheduling problems as parallel machine scheduling (PMS) and flowshop scheduling (FS). In the HFSP, a series of jobs are processed respectively in a set of stages that at least one of these stages has more than one parallel machine (identical, uniform or unrelated). HFSP is a widespreadly studied subject in the literature and there are various application areas such as transportation, healthcare management, agricultural activities, cloud computing, and the most common manufacturing. Therefore, it will be useful to present a review study including recent papers and developments related to this problem for researchers. For this aim, in this paper, a systematic literature survey has been conducted with respect to HFSPs by means of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology which enables to realize systematic review and meta-analyses in a specified subject. 172 articles which are published in the 2010-2020 year interval, related to production scheduling and including a mathematical programming model to express scheduling problems have been determined as a result of this methodological review process. These articles have been statistically analyzed according to many features such as year, country, journal, number of stages, type of parallel machines, constraints, objective functions, solution methods, test instances and type of parameters. The results of statistical analyses have been presented through charts so as to provide a visual demonstration to researchers. Furthermore, it has been aimed to answer 14 predetermined research questions by means of analyses realized in the scope of this review study. Consequently, it has revealed the existing literature, recent developments and future research suggestions related to HFSP and therefore it is possible to say that this review paper provides a beneficial road map for researchers studying in this field.

Public sector development projects are found to have poor repute in terms of completion within assigned cost and time. Almost every 2nd project is impacted by financial burdens and time delays. The aim of this literature review is to highlight the potential factors that impact the completion time and estimated cost with respect to public sector infrastructure development projects in Pakistan. 39 sub-factors have been identified from 32 existing research which are then classified into 8 main factors. The main factors include administrative issues, improper financial plans, market risks, input cost estimates, poor corporate governance, legal issues, technical matters errors, and environmental issues. The results of this systematic literature review will provide policymakers with oversight on how to formulate effective strategies regarding cost cutting and timely execution of the infrastructure development projects in Pakistan.

Risk disclosure condenses information asymmetry and delivers company risk information to external parties—nonetheless, inadequate studies highlight risk disclosure’s role in investor perception. Consequently, the risk disclosure studies are predominantly about determinant and tone impact, demanding further endeavor on the role of risk disclosure by enacting a bibliometric approach to review the status quo, pattern and focus, and the trend of the risk disclosure studies to determine the future research direction. This study pinpoints that risk disclosure has been progressively discussed in international publications over the last decade. Nevertheless, some relevant research community themes must be carefully planned, i.e., risk assessment and market risk disclosure. Further, the noteworthy aspect of writers’ productivity is that the most productive writers are excluded as the most cited authors, demonstrating that the hotspot of study on risk disclosure is the role in annual financial stability, determinants, and how crucial transparency is in the capital market. This study also reveals that extensive cooperation is conducted primarily in the USA, UK, and Australia. However, the development has shifted to China, India, and Asia. Future research on risk disclosure will be explored more in Russia, South America, and Africa, considering the countries’ regulations and risk policies.

The storage of goods plays a crucial role in warehouse management systems. Although this operation is often considered simple, it is in fact complex, due to the volume of products, the uncertainty in demands, and the rapid customer service response that the market requires. Moreover, the optimization of logistical resources to maintain an efficient operational flow, such as the allocation of storage spaces, often requires complex decisions. In this paper, we analyze academic contributions on the storage location assignment problem published between 2005 and 2017. The literature is classified according to the solution methods, objectives, and related considerations. Suggestions are also provided for future research.

In a brief review of the literature on stocks’ pricing, the study shows that information vis-à-vis noise serves critical roles in the equilibrium process. It is dynamic in nature and there are different infiltrating aspects from the standard finance to behavioral finance points of views. The aspects of market efficiency, fundamental risk, noise traders’ risk, and implementation costs make the stock markets noisy and thereby, limit the arbitrage opportunity of informed traders. Investors’ psychological bases viz., belief and preferences contribute more in the equilibrium process. Beliefs include representativeness, conservativeness, and anchoring, availability biases, optimism and wishful thinking, overconfidence, and herd behavior tendency on the part of the investors. On the preferences, investors are influenced by disposition effect, prospects based on reference points, mental accounting, ambiguity aversion, and self control.The study explores the empirical literature also and reviews the six puzzles in the standard finance. Finally, the work identifies a few research gaps to be addressed in the literature.

This study focuses on the importance of growth models, growth strategies, role of knowledge management system in the formulation of effective strategy for the enterprises following growth. Choice of an appropriate growth strategy is at the heart of any successful entrepreneurial venture. Selection of a strategy may be effective for one entrepreneur while it is not for other. Choice of Growth Strategy depends on various different factors, organisational context and environment which may vary from enterprise to enterprise. Resource based view is very important consideration for the entrepreneurs on the path of growth. Evaluation of all kind of resources helps them to grow their enterprises successfully. Selection of an appropriate growth strategy allows the entrepreneurs in overcoming growth challenges and avoiding the growth reversals and setbacks.

This survey research paper explores the methods most commonly used in over 190 studies determining life insurance efficiency. The purpose is to provide an overview of life insurance efficiency studies and guidance as to the (dis)advantages of the different techniques used plus their applicability to life insurance. An evaluation of the different approaches is undertaken plus an examination of the numbers and trends of methods and aspects of life insurance efficiency measurement. This paper also discusses the fundamental elements of life insurance efficiency estimation, such as the set-up and form of outputs and inputs. Findings include that the focus of life insurance efficiency studies considering individual nations has changed. Additionally data envelope analysis is the technique used most commonly with stochastic frontier analysis next. Another main result is that output proxies (akin to) premiums and investment income is utilized most. This study allows practitioners to determine the best techniques to employ in life insurance efficiency studies. Moreover an evaluation by regulators of the value and applicability of such studies is facilitated. This article builds upon those previous to enumerate and investigate the approaches most commonly used in over 190 papers determining life insurance efficiency and has described the advantages and disadvantages of these methods. Therefore an assessment of the overall results of efficiency studies is possible. In addition ideas for potential further research are discussed. Consequently this review will be useful to both practitioners and regulators concerned with this area.