A new intelligent MCDM model for HCW management: The integrated BWM–MABAC model based on D numbers

•D numbers are introduced to deal with the vagueness in decision-making.•A novel MCDM model based on D numbers and linguistic fuzzy variables is proposed.•A hybrid BWM-MABAC-D multi-criteria based decision model is proposed.•D numbers methodology is very flexible to deal with the vagueness in HCW problem.•Multi-criteria techniques were compared based on D numbers and fuzzy approaches.