A Novel q-Type Semi-Dependent Neutrosophic Decision-Making Approach and Its Applications in Supplier Selection

The principles of least effort and the illusion of control may influence the decision-making process. It is challenging for a decision-maker to maintain complete independence when assessing the membership and non-membership degrees of indicators. However, existing neutrosophic sets and q-rung orthopair fuzzy sets assume full independence of such information. In view of this, this paper proposes a new neutrosophic set, namely the q-type semi-dependent neutrosophic set (QTSDNS), based on the classical neutrosophic set, whose membership and non-membership degrees are interrelated. QTSDNS is a generalized form of classical semi-dependent fuzzy sets, such as the intuitionistic neutrosophic set. It contains a regulatory parameter, which allows for decision-makers to flexibly adjust the model. Furthermore, a multi-attribute group decision-making (MAGDM) algorithm is proposed by integrating QTSDNS with evidence theory to solve the supplier selection problem. The algorithm first utilizes QTSDNS to represent the preference information of experts, then employs the q-TSDNWAA (or q-TSDNWGA) operator to aggregate the evaluation information of individual experts. Following the analysis of the mathematical relationship between QTSDNS and evidence theory, evidence theory is used to aggregate the evidence from each expert to obtain the group trust interval. Then, the best supplier is determined using interval number ranking methods. Finally, a numerical example is provided to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method.