Abstract
The Maclaurin symmetric mean (MSM) was originally introduced by Maclaurin and then generalized by Detemple and Robertson. The prominent characteristic of the MSM is that it can capture the interrelationship among the multi-input arguments. However, the researches on MSM are very rare, especially in fuzzy decision making. In this paper, we investigate the MSM operator and extend the MSM operator to intuitionistic fuzzy environment. Some new aggregation operators based on MSM for dealing with intuitionistic fuzzy information are developed, such as the intuitionistic fuzzy Maclaurin symmetric mean (IFMSM) and the weighted intuitionistic fuzzy Maclaurin symmetric mean (WIFMSM). Some desirable properties and special cases of these operators are discussed in detail. Based on WIFMSM operator, an approach to multiple attribute decision making (MADM) problems with intuitionistic fuzzy information is developed. Finally, a practical example is provided to illustrate the practicality and effectiveness of the proposed method.