Knowledge diffusion trajectories in the Pythagorean fuzzy field based on main path analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to conduct a main path analysis of 627 articles on the theme of Pythagorean fuzzy sets (PFSs) in the Web of Science (WoS) from 2013 to 2020, to provide a conclusive and comprehensive analysis for researchers in this field, and to provide a study on preliminary understanding of PFSs.Design/methodology/approachThe research topic of Pythagorean fuzzy fields, through keyword extraction and describing the changes in characteristic themes over the past eight years, are firstly examined. Main path analysis, including local and global main paths and key route paths, is then used to reveal the most influential relationships between papers and to explore the trajectory and structure of knowledge transmission.FindingsThe application of Pythagorean fuzzy theory to the field of decision-making has been popular, and combinations of the traditional Pythagorean fuzzy decision-making method with other fuzzy sets have attracted widespread attention in recent years. In addition, over the past eight years, research interest has shifted to different types of PFSs, such as interval-valued PFSs.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper implicates to investigate the growth in certain trends in the literature and to explore the main paths of knowledge dissemination in the domain of PFSs in recent years.Originality/valueThis paper aims to identify the topics in which researchers are currently interested, to help scholars to keep abreast of the latest research on PFSs.