Supporting Decision Making in Technology Standards Battles Based on a Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process

In many markets, battles are fought over technology standards. Often, these battles result in a single standard that achieves dominance. Decision making in standards battles is complex due to the lack of insights about the factors that influence the outcome of such battles. These include the characteristics of the standard, the stakeholders, the standard supporters, and the standard support strategies. The importance of these factors determines the dominance of a technology standard. This study investigates the usability of a multiattribute utility approach named fuzzy analytic hierarchy process in decision making in technology standards battles. Three technology standards battles are analyzed using a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process approach. The empirical results show that the outcome of these standards battles is not fully characterized by path dependency, but that factors for standard dominance can be used to explain the outcome of these battles. We show that it is possible to model the process of standard selection. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process decision support tool is useful to determine the relative weight of factors for standard dominance, and can be successfully used in decision-making problems relating to standardization.

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