The Extended Linguistic Hellwig’s Methods Based on Oriented Fuzzy Numbers and Their Application to the Evaluation of Negotiation Offers

Abstract

This study proposes a novel fuzzy framework for eliciting and organizing the preference information of the negotiator to allow for the evaluation of negotiation offers. The approach is based on verbal evaluation of negotiation options that operates with linguistic variables to handle vague preferences and operationalizes them through oriented trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. Two variants of the linguistic method based on Hellwig’s approach and oriented fuzzy numbers are proposed, which can be applied to building a scoring system for the negotiation template. Then, an example of determining such a scoring system and using it to evaluate the negotiation offers in typical multi-issue negotiation is shown. The results are discussed and compared with other methods known from the literature, in which the preference information is organized similarly but processed differently. The comparison shows that the presented methods can be an alternative to Simple Additive Weighting or TOPSIS methods that may also operate with oriented fuzzy numbers, but some of their characteristics may be problematic from the viewpoint of data interpretation. The former requires defuzzification of the global scores determined, while the latter requires the compulsory use of two reference points derived mechanically out of the negotiation space. By applying modified Hellwig’s approaches, the former and the latter may be easily avoided.