Value-Driven Multiple Criteria Sorting with Probabilistic Linguistic Information Considering Uncertain Assignment Examples

Multiple criteria sorting (MCS) dedicates to assigning alternatives to one of the predefined ordered categories according to their evaluation information on multiple criteria. The utility (value) function-based sorting is a popular MCS procedure, which requires decision-makers to express their preferences through assignment examples. By taking the assignment examples as reference alternatives, the additive value function, as the preferred model of a decision maker, can be built using the preference disaggregation technique. However, the existing literature hardly considered people’s hesitancy when determining assignment examples, and ignored applying linguistic evaluation information on qualitative criteria. To fill these research gaps, this study proposes a value-driven MCS procedure with probabilistic linguistic information considering uncertain assignment examples. Specifically, the probability linguistic term set, as a flexible information representation tool, is introduced to express the hesitancy of decision-makers regarding assignment examples and the performance of alternatives on qualitative criteria. Besides, to comprehensively reflect the preference of a decision-maker, a weighted additive value function is proposed based on the preference disaggregation technique to calculate the comprehensive scores of alternatives in which the weights are determined by the best-worst method. Finally, a case study on the sorting of down coats for sale demonstrates the applicability and superiority of our proposed method.