A Belief Rule Based Expert System for Evaluating Technological Innovation Capability of High-Tech Firms Under Uncertainty

Technological innovation capability (TIC) is a complicated and subtle concept which is based on multiple quantitative and qualitative criteria. The cores of a firm's long-term competitive dominance are defined by technological innovation capability which is the incentive for a firm's innovation. Various types of uncertainty can be noticed while considering multiple criteria for evaluating TIC. In order to evaluate TIC in a reliable way, a Belief Rule Base (BRB) Expert System can be used to handle both quantitative and qualitative data and their associated uncertainties. In this paper, a RESTful API-based BRB expert system is introduced to evaluate technological innovation capability by taking uncertainties into consideration. This expert system will facilitate firms' managers to obtain a recapitulation of the TIC evaluation. It will help them to take essential steps to ensure corporate survival and strengthen their weak capabilities continuously to facilitate a competitive advantage. Other users can also use this API to apply BRB for a different domain. However, a comparison between the knowledge-driven approach (BRBES) and several data-driven models has been performed to find out the reliability in evaluating TIC. The result shows that the outcome of BRBES is better than other data-driven approaches.