Int. j. econ. manag. soc. sci., Vol(4), No (1), January, 2015. pp.

47-51

TI Journals

International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences

www.tijournals.com

ISSN:
2306-7276

Copyright 2015. All rights reserved for TI Journals.

Selecting the Key Staff Based on LFPP and TOPSIS Methods

Mehdi Sholeh
M.S. Candidate of Industrial Management, University of Tehran, Farabi Campus, Iran.

Mina Birjandi
M.S. Candidate of Public Administration, University of Allame Tabatabaee, Tehran, Iran.

Ebrahim Karami*
M.S. Candidate of Industrial Management, Islamic Azad University, Branch Saveh, Iran.
*Corresponding author: m.darya@yahoo.com

Keywords

Abstract

Selection
Key Staff
Logarithmic fuzzy preference
programming (LFPP)
TOPSIS

Todays organizations must gain advantages to compete with other organizations, and because of the
importance of staff in every organization, the managers must identifying the best and key staff of their
organizations. Prosperous key staff or organizational talent can contribute to higher performance as a source of
competitive advantage by making organizations more productive. The purpose of this paper is applying an
integrated method to key staff Selection. The approach is based on Logarithmic fuzzy preference programming
and TOPSIS methods. LFPP method is used in determining the weights of the criteria by decision makers and
then choosing key staff are determined by TOPSIS method.

1.

Introduction and literature

Today in present changing conditions, organizations in order to achieve more productivity and finally to achieve determined aims should pay
enough attention to their HRs especially their key staffs. It means that organizations believe that the most important way to increase
organizational efficiency and effectiveness is to improve their HR productivity. on Zuboff perspective, the tops are a small group of employees
that display better performance in their jobs, and give inspiration to others who want to get success, and those who have to carry the competence
and worthiness for organization [1].
Branham in this respect implies the Pareto principle that 20 percent of HR creates 80 percent of the values for the organization [2]. In general,
competency is defined as a person related concept referring to a set of dimensions of behavior constituting ones superior performance at work
[3] [4]. Competency is the key word of key employee and is defined as the basic capabilities and abilities that an employee should have in order
to do a job as well as possible [5]. The concept of this term can be viewed differently within an organization. From a strategic management
perspective, Hitt, Ireland, and Hoskisson (2005) define competencies as a combination of capabilities and resources [6]. The combination of
capabilities and resources in an organization can be classified as core competencies when they are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate, and difficult
to substitute [7].
Nowadays, competencies are used in many aspects of HRM, ranging from individual functions like performance management to organizational
planning, such as design of organizational structure and culture [8]. The concept of the management competencies originates from Dale and Iles
[9]. These competencies are considered behavioral, and specify the skills required of a person in a specific task [10]. The competency model is a
set of competencies, namely success factors which include the key behaviors required for better performance in a any role [11]. Perhaps, It is
impossible for anybody to master a broad set of competencies simultaneously.
The goal of a choosing key employee depends on assessing the differences among candidates and predicting the future productivity. Very few
empirical researches exist that have tried to identifying the criteria of key staffs but it is the most important issues or subject in any organization.
Jessop identified 7 criteria for key staff: decisiveness, written communication, planning, oral communication, organizing ability, team player,
and working independently [12]. Personality factors are explained as emotional stability, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and
conscientiousness. Michael believe that talent staff should have top knowledge, skills and abilities for develop and help the normal staffs.
The remainder of this article is organized as follows. Fuzzy sets and Fuzzy numbers descript. Then in next Section, Logarithmic fuzzy
preference programming and TOPSIS methods are explained. In other Section, the application of proposed methods is illustrated and finally,
conclusion is provided.

2.

Fuzzy set theory

Fuzzy set theory was first developed in 1965 by Zadeh; he was attempting to solve fuzzy phenomenon problems, including problems with
uncertain, incomplete, unspecific, or fuzzy situations. Fuzzy set theory is more advantageous than traditional set theory when describing set
concepts in human language. It allows us to address unspecific and fuzzy characteristics by using a membership function that partitions a fuzzy
set into subsets of members that incompletely belong to or incompletely do not belong to a given subset.
2.1. Fuzzy Numbers
We order the Universe of Discourse such that U is a collection of targets, where each target in the Universe of Discourse is called an element.
Fuzzy number A is mapped onto U such that a random x U is appointed a real number, (x) [0,1]. If another element in U is greater than
x, we call that element under A.
The universe of real numbers R is a triangular fuzzy number (TFN)A, which means that for x R, (x) [0,1], and
(x L)(M L),
L x M,
(x) = (U x)(U M), M x U,
0,
otherwise,

Mehdi Sho'leh, Mina Birjandi, Ebrahim Karami *

48

International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences Vol(4), No (1), January, 2015.

Note that A = (L, M, U), where L and U represent fuzzy probability between the lower and upper boundaries, respectively, as in Fig. 1. Assume
two fuzzy numbers A = (L , M , U ), and A = (L , M , U ); then,

( )
1

Fig. 1. Triangular fuzzy number

(1) A A = (L , M , U ) (L , M , U ) = (L + L , M + M , U + U )
(2) A A = (L , M , U ) (L , M , U ) = (L L , M M , U U ), L > 0, M > 0, U > 0
(3) A A = (L , M , U ) (L , M , U ) = (L L , M M , U U )
L M U
(4) A A = (L , M , U ) (L , M , U ) =
,
,
, L > 0, M > 0, U > 0
L M U
1 1 1
(5) A = (L , M , U ) =
,
,
, L > 0, M > 0, U > 0
U M L
2.2. Fuzzy Linguistic Variables
The fuzzy linguistic variable is a variable that reflects different aspects of human language. Its value represents the range from natural to
artificial language. When the values or meanings of a linguistic factor are being reflected, the resulting variable must also reflect appropriate
modes of change for that linguistic factor. Moreover, variables describing a human word or sentence can be divided into numerous linguistic
criteria, such as equally important, moderately important, strongly important, very strongly important, and extremely important. For the purposes
of the present study, the 5-point scale (equally important, moderately important, strongly important, very strongly important and extremely
important) is used.

3.

Research Methodology

In this paper, the weights of each criterion are calculated using LFPP. After that, TOPSIS is utilized to rank the alternatives. Finally, we select
the key staff based on these results.
3.1. The LFPP-based nonlinear priority method
In this method for the fuzzy pairwise comparison matrix, Wang et al (2011) took its logarithm by the following approximate equation [13]:
ln = (ln

, ln

,ln

), i,j = 1.,n

(6)

That is, the logarithm of a triangular fuzzy judgment aij can still be seen as an approximate triangular fuzzy number, whose membership function
can accordingly be defined as

ln

Where

, ln

ln

, ln

ln

ln

(7)

is the membership degree of ln

belonging to the approximate triangular fuzzy judgment ln = (ln

It is very natural that we hope to find a crisp priority vector to maximize the minimum membership degree = min {

ln

, ln

,ln

).

| i=1,,n-1 ;

j=i+1,, n} . The resultant model can be constructed (Wang et al, 2011) as

Maximize

Subject to

, = 1, , 1; = + 1, , ,

ln

(8)

0, = 1, , ,

Or as
Maximize 1-
ln

ln

ln

ln

, = 1, , 1; = + 1, , ,
(9)

Subject to
ln

+ ln

ln

ln

, = 1, , ; = + 1, , ,

It is seen that the normalization constraint

= 1 is not included in the above two equivalent models. This is because the models will
become computationally complicated if the normalization constraint is included. Before normalization, without loss of generality, we can assume
such that ln 0 for = 1, , . Note that the nonnegative assumption for ln 0 (i = 1,. . . ,n) is not
1 for all = 1, ,

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Selecting the Key Staff Based on LFPP and TOPSIS Methods

International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences Vol(4), No (1), January, 2015.

essential. The reason for producing a negative value for is that there are no weights that can meet all the fuzzy judgments in within their
support intervals. That is to say, not all the inequalities ln

ln

ln

ln

or ln

+ ln

ln

ln

at the same time. To avoid k from taking a negative value, Wang et al (2011) introduced nonnegative deviation variables
1, , 1; = + 1, , , such that they meet the following inequalities:
ln

ln

ln

ln

ln

+ ln

ln

can hold

and for =

, = 1, , 1; = + 1, ,

ln

, = 1, , ; = + 1, ,

(10)

It is the most desirable that the values of the deviation variables are the smaller the better. Wang et al (2011) thus proposed the following LFPPbased nonlinear priority model for fuzzy AHP weight derivation:
J= (1-)2+M.

Minimize

Subject to

ln

, = 1, , 1; = + 1, , ,

ln
+ ln
, = 1, , ; = + 1, , ,

, 0, = 1, ,

, 0, = 1, , 1; = + 1, ,

+ )
ln

(11)

Where = ln for i = 1,. . . ,n and M is a specified sufficiently large constant such as M = 103. The main purpose of introducing a big constant
M into the above model is to find the weights within the support intervals of fuzzy judgments without violations or with as little violations as
possible.
3.2. The TOPSIS Method
The TOPSIS method is proposed in Chen and Hwang, with reference to Hwang and Yoon [14]. The basic principle is that the chosen alternative
should have the shortest distance from the ideal solution that maximizes the benefit and also minimizes the total cost, and the farthest distance
from the negative-ideal solution that minimizes the benefit and also maximizes the total cost [15].
The TOPSIS method consists of the following steps:
Step 1: Calculate the normalized decision matrix. The normalized value rij is calculated as

rij =

, ,

(12)

Step 2: Calculate the weighted normalized decision matrix. The weighted normalized value vij is calculated as

vi j= wjrij, i,j

(13)

Where w j is the weight of the jth criterion, and

=1

Step 3: Determine the ideal and negative-ideal solution.

A* ={

A- ={

,,

, ,

}=

max

, min

(14)

}=

min

, max

(15)

where Cb is associated with benefit criteria and Cc is associated with cost criteria.
Step 4: Calculate the separation measures, using the m-dimensional Euclidean distance. The separation of each alternative from the ideal solution
is given as

(16)

Similarity, the separation from the negative-ideal solution is given as

=

(17)
*

Step 5: Calculate the relative closeness to the ideal solution. The relative closeness of the alternative Ai with respect to A is defined as

(18)

Step 6: Rank the preference order.

The index values of

lie between 0 and 1. The larger index value means the closer to ideal solution for alternatives.

Mehdi Sho'leh, Mina Birjandi, Ebrahim Karami *

50

International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences Vol(4), No (1), January, 2015.

4.

Key staff selecting using integrated approach

In this paper, 10 experts in management and psychologist were invited to review 5 alternatives using the research framework shown in Fig 2.
Through the literature studies and experts opinions, the scholars finally adopted 8 criteria. This research framework includes 8 evaluation
criteria, such as Idealistic (C1), Personal Characteristics (C 2), Learner (C 3), Innovative (C4), Behavioral Characteristics (C5), Executive Skills
(C 6), Emotional Intelligence (C7) and Academic Background (C8). In addition, there are 5 alternatives include: Key Staff number one (KS1 ),
(KS2), (KS3 ), (KS4), and (KS5). For Selecting the Key Staff, we used the research framework from Ghafarian (1999) and Zarei Matin et al (2011)
[16] [17].

Criteria

Key
staff

General
Characteristics

KS 1

1. Idealistic
2. Personal
Characteristics
3. Learner
4.Innovative

Key staff
selecting
Professional
Characteristics
1.Behavioral characteristics
2.Executive Skills
3.Emotional Intelligence
4.Academic Background

KS 2

KS 3

KS 4

KS 5

Fig. 2. Research framework

In this article, the weights of criteria are calculated by using LFPP, and these calculated weight values are used as TOPSIS inputs. Then, after
TOPSIS calculations, evaluation of the alternatives and selection of key staff is realized.
Logarithmic Fuzzy Preference Programming:

In LFPP, firstly, we should determine the weights of each criterion by utilizing pair-wise comparison matrices. We compare each criterion
with respect to other criteria. You can see the pair-wise comparison matrix for Professional knowledge criteria as an example in Table 1.
The weights of other criteria are obtained like General Characteristics criteria.
Table 1. Comparison matrix of General Characteristics criteria
C1
C2
C3
C4

C1
(1.00,1.00,1.00)
(2.00,3.00,4.00)
(4.00,6.33,8.00)
(2.00,3.00,4.00)

C2
(0.25,0.33,0.5)
(1.00,1.00,1.00)
(3.00,4.00,5.00)
(1.00,2.00,3.00)

C3
(0.125,0.157,0.2)
(0.2,0.25,0.33)
(1.00,1.00,1.00)
(0.2,0.25,0.33)

C4
(0.25,0.33,0.5)
(0.33,0.5,1.00)
(3.00,4.00,5.00)
(1.00,1.00,1.00)

After forming the model (11) for the comparison matrix and solving this model using of Genetic algorithms, the weight vector is obtained as
follow:
= (0.167632, 0.286035, 0.348166, 0.198135)T
After that evaluators were asked to build the decision matrix by comparing the alternatives under each criterion. In addition, the evaluators were
asked to provide a set of crisp values within a range from 1 to 10. By using Eqs. (12) and (13), the weighted normalized decision matrix
calculated by multiplying the normalized decision matrix and the weights are obtained, as presented in Table 2.

51

Selecting the Key Staff Based on LFPP and TOPSIS Methods

International Journal of Economy, Management and Social Sciences Vol(4), No (1), January, 2015.

Table 2. The weighted normalized decision matrix

KS 1
KS 2
KS 3
KS 4
KS 5

C1
0.78
0.38
0.14
0.27
0.27

C2
0.25
0.57
0.09
0.38
0.09

C7
0.76
0.43
0.45
0.19
0.34

C8
0.91
0.35
0.29
0.04
0.15

After developing the weighted normalized decision matrix, the final ranking procedure should determine the ideal solution and negative-ideal
solutions by using Eqs. (14) and (15).
Table 3. Final ranking of persons
KS 1
KS 2
KS 3
KS 4
KS 5

Distance (+)
0.08
0.1
0.12
0.27
0.11

Distance (-)
0.15
0.17
0.16
0.05
0.19

Coefficient of Closeness
0.652
0.630
0.571
0.155
0.633

ranking
1
3
4
5
2

By using Eqs. (16) and (17), the computed distances of each person from ideal solution (S) and negative-ideal solution (S ) are presented in
Table 3. Based on their relative closeness to the ideal solution obtained by using Eq. (18), the final step of the TOPSIS method consists of
ranking key staff. In this case, the results show that the alternative (KS1) as the best choice and KS5, KS2, KS3, KS4 are the second, third,
fourth, and fifth choice.

5.

Conclusion

In present changing conditions, organizations in order to achieve more productivity should pay enough attention to their HRs especially their key
staffs. It means that organizations believe that the most important way to increase organizational efficiency and effectiveness is to improve their
HR productivity. In general, competency is defined as a person related concept referring to a set of dimensions of behavior constituting ones
superior performance at work [3] [4]. Competency is the key word of key employee and is defined as the basic capabilities and abilities that an
employee should have in order to do a job as well as possible [5]. The concept of the management competencies originates from Dale and Iles
(1992). These competencies are considered behavioral, and specify the skills required of a person in a specific task [10]. The competency
model is a set of competencies, namely success factors which include the key behaviors required for better performance in any role [11].
Therefore, Selection of the most qualified staff is a key success factor for an organization. The importance of the problem call for analytical
methods. In this research paper, a two-step LFPP and TOPSIS methodology is applied here that TOPSIS uses LFPP result weights as input
weights. Then a case study is presented to demonstrate applicability and performance of the methodology. It can be said that using linguistic
variables makes the evaluation process more realistic. Because evaluation is not an exact process and has fuzziness in its body. Here, the usage
of LFPP weights in TOPSIS makes the application more realistic and reliable. So, the approach was based on Logarithmic fuzzy preference
programming and TOPSIS methods. LFPP method was used in determining the weights of the criteria by decision makers and then choosing key
staff are determined by TOPSIS method. The proposed model has only been implemented on a key staff selection problem. Finally, the results
show that the alternative (KS1) as the best choice and KS5, KS2, KS3, KS4 are the second, third fourth and fifth choice.

Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their comments and suggestions.

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[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]

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