Analysis on ordered weighted averaging operators in different types and applications for decision making

Abstract

Since Yager initially introduced the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator in 1988, it has been used to aggregate multiple decision-maker attitudes to yield an overall decision. This article uses science mapping analysis to provide an overview of the types and applications of OWA operators. The main goals are to discuss the OWA development path, its formulas and possible extensions in the literature, and the identification of the domains where the OWA operators have been most used. The results verify that, on the one hand, the OWA operators have been primarily used in the decision-making system; on the other hand, it can be extended by including various measurements into the OWA operator's formula. OWA and its applications have been expanding in a variety of fields, including computer science, business, economics, environment and natural resource, finance, geography, mathematics, and so on. The main use of the OWA operators in multiple application fields is to select the optimal strategy or plan by calculating the weight or importance of different criteria and taking into account the attitudinal character or degree of optimism of the decision-maker. In a word, this paper examines over 19,000 articles indexed by Web of Science, whose main contribution is to provide some future research directions on OWA.