Academic research institutes-construction enterprises linkages for the development of urban green building: Selecting management of green building technologies innovation partner

•Field theory is used to fully consider complementary resources.•A novel niche field model is proposed based on niche theory and field theory.•A criteria framework is proposed based on niche strength and degree of niche overlap.•A fuzzy PT-EW-VIKOR-IELECTRE approach is proposed to evaluate niche-fitness. While eco-economy policy drives green building technologies (GBTs) innovation for the development of urban green building, GBTs innovation is still plagued with various barriers. Although many studies have examined the issues on GBTs innovation, few have specifically conducted on partner selection for GBTs innovation. This study not only proposed a criteria framework based on niche theory for niche-fitness evaluation, but also developed a novel niche field model for the selecting management of GBTs innovation partner based on field theory. First, fuzzy set theory is used to obtain the cooperation aspiration of academic research institutes according to the criteria framework. Moreover, fuzzy prospect theory is introduced to help construction enterprises avoid risks blindly or like risks, so that decision-making is more reasonable. Second, the combined method of VIKOR method and improved ELECTRE method considering compensatory and non-compensatory decision rules is coupled with the criteria weight calculated by entropy measure method to evaluate the niche-fitness of academic research institutes. Furthermore, a novel niche field model considering resource complementarity is developed to select a best academic research institute. Finally, the results of a case study shows that the criteria framework and the niche field model can be applied to real-world partner selection for GBTs innovation and yield selecting results that are more realistic. This study proposes a theoretical framework based on niche strength and degree of niche overlap for niche-fitness evaluation, and innovation ability, trust and communication degree, and compatibility level are reasonably incorporated into the theoretical framework. Moreover, this study also theoretically expends the applications of field theory considering resource complementarity with fuzzy linguistic information in collaborative innovation paradigm. In addition, this study can help construction enterprises select their GBT innovation partners from the masses of academic research institutes, and thereby promote GBTs innovation activities.