Tackling Complexity in Green Contractor Selection for Mega Infrastructure Projects: A Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic MADM Approach with considering Group Attitudinal Character and Attributes’ Interdependency

Continuous environmental concerns regarding construction industry have been driving general constructors of mega infrastructure projects to incorporate green contractors. Although conventional multiple attributes decision-making (MADM) methodologies have provided feasible ways to select contractor, high complexity in scenarios of megaprojects still challenges existing MADM methods in concurrently accommodating three key issues of decision hesitancy, attributes interdependency, and group attitudinal character. To elicit decision-makers’ hesitant fuzzy assessments more objectively and comprehensively, we define an expression tool called interval-valued dual hesitant fuzzy uncertain unbalanced linguistic set (IVDHF_UUBLS) and develop aggregation operators through its operations. To exploit attributes interdependency, we establish a synthesized attributes’ weighting model to fuse an attributes interdependency-based weighting vector and an argument-dependent weighting vector, which are, respectively, derived through Decision-Making and Trial Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique and maximizing deviation method. To effectively utilize decision-makers’ group attitudinal characters, we also develop a TOPSIS-based method to rationally transform group ideal attitudes into order-inducing vectors. On the strength of the above methods, an integrated MADM approach is then constructed. Finally, illustrative case study and experiments are conducted to validate our approach.