Application of correlation coefficient to interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy multiple attribute decision-making with incomplete weight information

With respect to multiple attribute decision-making problems with interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy information, some operational laws of interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy numbers, correlation and correlation coefficient of interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy sets are introduced. An optimization model based on the negative ideal solution and max-min operator, by which the attribute weights can be determined, is established. We utilize the interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging operator proposed by Xu (Control Decis 22(2):215–219, 2007) to aggregate the interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy information corresponding to each alternative, and then rank the alternatives and select the most desirable one(s) according to the correlation coefficient. Finally, an illustrative example is given to verify the developed approach and to demonstrate its practicality and effectiveness.