New Dynamic Group DEMATEL Decision-Making Method Based on Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Term Sets

Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method is comprehensively applied in the complicated socioeconomic system. Existing literatures on DEMATEL focus on static decision environment at single time node. However, due to the increasingly complex and rapidly changing socioeconomic environment, decision-making has become more complex and dynamic. In this paper, dynamic group DEMATEL method based on hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets (HFLTSs) is proposed. In the view of the multi-stage, multi-factor and multi-expert complex decision-making situation, the method fully integrates the decision-making information of different periods from the perspective of dynamic evolution mechanism which can effectively link multi rounds DEMATEL decision-making process and reflect the time evolution of dynamic decision-making. Meanwhile, the TOPSIS method is applied to determine the weight of experts, which can effectively solve the influence of the best choice (positive ideal solution) and the worst choice (negative ideal solution) on the decision results in aggregation of group experts' preference information, and fully consider the influence of hesitation and fuzziness of expert preference representation on expert weight. Finally, a numerical comparison is given to verify validity and effectiveness of the proposed approach.