Technological barriers to creating regional resilience in digital platform-based firms: Compound of performance sensitivity analysis and BIRCH algorithm

Abstract

Entrepreneurial ventures face various problems contributing to the regional resilience of their districts. Among such firms are digital platform-based businesses that could have exponential impacts—indeed, if they succeed in overcoming the barriers. Thus, this study aims to identify the major technological barriers to creating regional resilience in Iran's innovation districts. This study uses the analytical hierarchy process method and an unsupervised machine learning algorithm, as well as the Delphi technique. Online panel surveys are conducted to collect data from experts in the field of online social platforms. The findings show that digital literacy barriers and cultural barriers are the criteria with the uppermost and lowermost importance. Performance sensitivity analysis illustrates that considering the C1 and C4 criteria, the Digikala platform is more resistant to technological barriers compared to other platforms. Furthermore, based on C2 and C3 criteria, it can be stated that the Snapp platform reveals better resistance than the other platforms. The importance-performance matrix also shows that all platforms need more attention in terms of performance. Besides, the results of the BIRCH analysis show that the present model's accuracy is 88%. Meanwhile, outputs show that experts are divided into four groups or four different thoughts.