Integrating Large Language Models into a Novel Intuitionistic Fuzzy PROBID Method for Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Problems

As vision and mission statements embody the directions set forth by an organization, their connection to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) must be made explicit to guide overall decision-making in taking strides toward the sustainability agenda. The semantic alignment of these strategic statements with the SDGs is investigated in a previous study, although several limitations need further exploration. Thus, this study aims to advance two contributions: (1) utilizing the capabilities of LLMs (Large Language Models) in text semantic analysis and (2) integrating fuzziness into the problem domain by using a novel intuitionistic fuzzy set extension of the PROBID (Preference Ranking On the Basis of Ideal-average Distance) method. First, a systematic approach evaluates the semantic alignment of organizational strategic statements with the SDGs by leveraging the use of LLMs in semantic similarity and relatedness tasks. Second, viewing it as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem and recognizing the limitations of LLMs, the evaluations are represented as intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs), which prompted the development of an IF extension of the PROBID method. The proposed IF-PROBID method was then deployed to evaluate the 47 top Philippine corporations. Utilizing ChatGPT 3.5, 7990 prompts with repetitions generated the membership, non-membership, and hesitance scores for each evaluation. Also, we developed a cohort-dependent SDG–vision–mission matrix that categorizes corporations into four distinct classifications. Findings suggest that “highly-aligned” corporations belong to the private and technology sectors, with some in the industrial and real estate sectors. Meanwhile, “weakly-aligned” corporations come from the manufacturing and private sectors. In addition, case-specific insights are presented in this work. The comparative analysis yields a high agreement between the results and those generated by other IF-MCDM extensions. This paper is the first to demonstrate two methodological advances: (1) the integration of LLMs in MCDM problems and (2) the development of the IF-PROBID method that handles the resulting inherently imprecise evaluations.