Matrix games involving interval-valued hesitant fuzzy linguistic sets and its application to electric vehicles

Game theory has been successfully applied in a variety of domains to deal with competitive environments between individuals or groups. The matrix games involving fuzzy, interval fuzzy, and intuitionistic fuzzy numbers exclusively examine the numeric components of an issue. However, several researchers have also examined various extensions of conventional game theory, considering the ambiguous situations for payoffs and goals. In many real-life scenarios, qualitative information is often critical in expressing the payoffs of a matrix game. Thus, the present work contributes to the field of matrix games where the payoffs have been quantified via qualitative variables, termed interval-valued hesitant fuzzy linguistic sets. The mathematical formulation and solution concept for matrix games involving interval-valued hesitant fuzzy linguistic numbers is designed by utilizing an aggregation operator supported by linguistic scale function and solving them by employing score function. Finally, the proposed approach is validated by applying it to electric vehicle sales.