The induced linguistic continuous ordered weighted geometric operator and its application to group decision making

• Induced linguistic COWG (ILCOWG) operator is developed.
• Properties of the new operator are discussed.
• The relative consensus degree ILCOWG operator is proposed.
• The optimal model for weighting experts based on the distance measure is presented.
• The new operator is applied to group decision making.

In this paper, based on the induced linguistic ordered weighted geometric (ILOWG) operator and the linguistic continuous ordered weighted geometric (LCOWG) operator, we develop the induced linguistic continuous ordered weighted geometric (ILCOWG) operator, which is very suitable for group decision making (GDM) problems taking the form of uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations. We also present the consistency of uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relation and study some properties of the ILCOWG operator. Then we propose the relative consensus degree ILCOWG (RCD-ILCOWG) operator, which can be used as the order-inducing variable to induce the ordering of the arguments before aggregation. In order to determine the weights of experts in group decision making (GDM), we define a new distance measure based on the LCOWG operator and develop a nonlinear model on the basis of the criterion of minimizing the distance of the uncertain multiplicative linguistic preference relations. Finally, we analyze the applicability of the new approach in a financial GDM problem concerning the selection of investments.