2-Tuple linguistic hybrid arithmetic aggregation operators and application to multi-attribute group decision making

The focus of this paper is on multi-attribute group decision making (MAGDM) problems in which the attribute values, attribute weights, and expert weights are all in the form of 2-tuple linguistic information, which are solved by developing a new decision method based on 2-tuple linguistic hybrid arithmetic aggregation operator. First, the operation laws for 2-tuple linguistic information are defined and the related properties of the operation laws are studied. Hereby some hybrid arithmetic aggregation operators with 2-tuple linguistic information are developed, involving the 2-tuple hybrid weighted arithmetic average (THWA) operator, the 2-tuple hybrid linguistic weighted arithmetic average (T-HLWA) operator, and the extended 2-tuple hybrid linguistic weighted arithmetic average (ET-HLWA) operator. In the proposed decision method, the individual overall preference values of alternatives are derived by using the extended 2-tuple weighted arithmetic average operator (ET-WA). Utilized the ET-HLWA operator, all the individual overall preference values of alternatives are further integrated into the collective ones of alternatives, which are used to rank the alternatives. A real example of personnel selection is given to illustrate the developed method and the comparison analyses demonstrate the universality and flexibility of the method proposed in this paper. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.