The importance weighted continuous generalized ordered weighted averaging operator and its application to group decision making

The uncertainty of decision making problems means that the assessments may be provided by means of continuous intervals. The importance weighted continuous ordered weighted averaging operator has been developed in the case that the values in an interval have associated importance weights. In order to provide better properties of the importance weighted aggregation method, we propose the importance weighted continuous generalized ordered weighted averaging (IW-CGOWA) operator and its attitudinal character. We study the properties of the IW-CGOWA operator and introduce its special cases. We then extend the IW-CGOWA operator to aggregate multiple continuous arguments. A group decision making model based on the IW-CGOWA operator is introduced and a numerical example with a comparative analysis among different aggregation operators is then provided to show the flexibility and generality of the IW-CGOWA operator. 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.