Decision framework of group consensus with hesitant fuzzy linguistic preference relations

Group decision making typically requires eliciting and coordinating the preferences of group members. In this study, the authors develop an overall framework of group consensus in context of hesitant fuzzy linguistic preference relations (HFLPRs). A new notion of distance measure between two HFLPRs is defined, based on which a consensual framework consists of two mechanisms, the automatic consensus reaching and the interactive consensus reaching is presented. Accordingly, they, respectively, design two algorithms to implement these mechanisms. Finally, a group decision problem of green supplier selection is provided to exemplify and verify both of the proposed methods, and a comparative analysis with some related approaches is performed.