An integrated CRITIC-MABAC model under 2-tuple linguistic cubic q-rung orthopair fuzzy information with advanced aggregation operators, designed for multiple attribute group decision-making

In the process of multi-attribute group decision-making (MAGDM), the cubic q-rung orthopair fuzzy sets (Cuq-ROFSs) are utilized to express membership and non-membership degrees in the form of interval values to efficiently cope with decision makers’ (DMs’) complex assessment values. To more efficiently capture DM evaluation results in the MAGDM procedure, we offer a novel tool called 2-tuple linguistic cubic q-rung orthopair fuzzy set (2TLCuq-ROFS), which extends Cuq-ROFS by using 2-tuple linguistic (2TL) terms. 2TLCuq-ROFS effectively incorporates the advantages of 2TL and Cuq-ROFS, making them attractive and versatile for depicting attribute values in an uncertain and complex decision-making environment. To effectively aggregate the attribute values in the form of 2-tuple linguistic cubic q-rung orthopair fuzzy numbers (2TLCuq-ROFNs), some Maclaurin symmetric mean (MSM) operators and their weighted forms are presented in this paper. The weight information for attributes is unknown. Therefore, the criteria importance through inter-criteria correlation (CRITIC) method is employed to determine the objective weight information. The purpose of this study is to incorporate a conventional multi-attributive border approximation area comparison (MABAC) framework based on 2TLCuq-ROFNs because it addresses problematic and imprecise decision-making problems by calculating the distance among each alternative and the border approximation area by using 2TLCuq-ROFNs and MSM aggregation operators. First, some basic concepts associated with 2TLCuq-ROFNs and the CRITIC-MABAC procedure are briefly explained. Moreover, an evaluation framework based on the improved CRITIC-MABAC method is established. An explanatory case study related to the risk investment problem in Belt and Road is used to verify the validity and practicality of the designed evaluation framework. In conclusion, by utilizing the CRITIC-MABAC methodology based on proposed operators, we find that \(\varLambda _7\) is the optimal alternative for risk investment. Furthermore, comparison analysis emphasizes the integrity and prominent features of the proposed methodology and provides various complementary perspectives for investors.