**5. Conclusions**

Compared with thoroughly studied projects on financial distress prediction, works on performance forecasting are quite rare, even as it is widely acknowledged that a corporation's bad operating performance is the critical trigger for financial distress. Thus, this study introduced a novel hybrid mechanism that combined different technologies—as financial indicators and efficiency scores—in order to present a comprehensive description of corporate operating performance evaluation for users to make reliable judgments. The financial indicators were collected from financial statements, and the efficiency scores were obtained from 14 different DEA specifications (i.e., inputs and outputs are combined in several dissimilar ways). It has been demonstrated that there are numerous advantages from computing efficiency scores under all possible specifications of the DEA model [49]. While it is obvious that such a mechanism generates much redundancy, it does provide valuable and useful information. In order to make the outcome accessible to non-specialists, we employed a data reduction technique, called NFRPCA, to visualize the data's main characteristics. By doing so, we can determine which corporation belongs to the efficient group and which corporation belongs to the inefficient group.

We then sequentially fed the analyzed outcome into the RBME to construct the model for corporate operating performance forecasting. To enhance the model's forecasting quality, the introduced model was extended to an ensemble structure. Even a fraction of improvement in forecasting accuracy can be converted into tremendous future savings. However, no specific model can attain the best forecasting outcome under all assessment criteria. Model selection is a classical MCDA task, which can be handled through an MCDA algorithm. The model herein, examined by real cases, is a promising alternative for corporate operating performance forecasting. Corporate managers can take this model as a guideline to adjust their firm's financial structure so as to reduce the cost of capital as well as enhance its profit margin. A corporation with greater profits implies that it has higher risk-absorbing ability to survive in this highly turbulent business environment and greater possibility to reach the goal of sustainable development. Investors can view the model as a roadmap to modify their investment portfolio to maximize personal wealth under anticipated risk level. Policy makers can consider the potential implication of the research outcome and formulate future policies to strengthen financial markets as well as reach the goal of efficient markets.

Future works can consider two potential research directions. First, we worked on the target sample of Taiwan's electronics industry, which suggests that the ability to generalize the results is limited. Future studies can look into other industries or conduct cross-country analyses. Second, future direction can enhance the model's forecasting quality by considering much more sophisticated information, such as R&D expenditure and innovation capability. This is because innovation capability has been widely viewed as an essential element for sustainable economic growth as well as for representing the corporation's competitive advantage [50–54].

**Author Contributions:** The following statements should be used "conceptualization, Y.Z. and M.L.; methodology, M.L.; software, M.L.; validation, Y.Z. and M.L.; formal analysis, Y.Z. and M.L.; investigation, Y.Z. and M.L.; resources, M.L.; data curation, M.L.; writing—original draft preparation, Y.Z. and M.L.; writing—review and editing, Y.Z. and M.L.; visualization, M.L.; supervision, Y.Z. and M.L., please turn to the CRediT taxonomy for the term explanation. Authorship must be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work reported.

**Funding:** This research was funded by Straits Institute of Minjiang University and Institute of Higher Education Cooperation and Exchange across the Taiwan Strait, Minjiang University.

**Conflicts of Interest:** No conflict of interest exists in the submission of this manuscript.

#### **References**


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