Innovation and survival of traditional industries: measuring barriers using the Best Worst Method

Traditional industries, seen as cultural heritage, need to be innovative to grow and survive in the era of fast technological advancement. However, traditional industries are continuously encountering decline. This research aims at identifying and addressing barriers of innovation to make an informed decision for better survival and improvement. To this end, a review of literature was used to propose a hierarchical structure of criteria in which innovation barriers were categorized into organizational, environmental, and supply chain dimensions. An online questionnaire was designed based on a multi-criteria decision-making method called Best-Worst Method (BWM) to identify the importance of the barriers. The opinion of 41 experts working in the Iranian Carpet and Leather industries was collected. The results of the BWM indicated that organizational culture and management support, which both belong to the organizational dimension, are the most important barriers to innovation in the Leather and Carpet industries, and that the environmental sub-criteria has the less important ranking in both selected traditional industries. Results illustrated that the two industries have no significant difference in the three perspectives.