A literature review of interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making methodologies

Multi criteria decision-making (MCDM) is one of the most popular problems handled by researchers in the literature. Since the interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy set (IVIFS) theory generates as realistic as possible evaluation of linguistic expressions, researchers have been expanding traditional MCDM methods to the IVIF environment, especially in the last decade. This study provides a literature review of the relevant articles from several academic databases on applications of IVIF-MCDM methods. The review of 131 publications addresses specific research questions. To understand the research publication trend, this review offers a visual analysis that examines the studies from different perspectives, such as application areas, IVIF-MCDM methods, citations, most relevant journals, and validation methods. One of the most remarkable results of the literature review is that most publications in this field are published in SCIE indexed journals. Another noteworthy issue is that China is the country that produces the most articles in this field. In addition, English journals are mostly selected for the publication of articles. While it is seen that the investment selection problem is chosen mostly as the application area, the TOPSIS method is preferred mostly in the applications. This study stands out as the most comprehensive one that compiles publications containing extended traditional MCDM methods for IVIF sets. This review will be an important reference for future researchers and decision-makers involved in advancing MCDM methods considering vagueness and ambiguity.