An Architecture for Organizational Decision Support Systems that Utilizes a Model Coordination Subsystem

Abstract

Organizational Decision Support Systems (ODSS) aim to support organizational decision-making that cuts across functional boundaries in the organization. As opposed to the conventional top-down approach to ODSS development, this research views integration of end-user-developed, organization-wide functional decision support systems as a viable approach for the development of an ODSS. First, this research examines coordination issues of those individual DSSs when they participate in organizational decision making as constituents of an ODSS. The coordination issues are discussed from the perspective of cycle time and quality of the organizational decision outcomes that the ODSS intends to promote. Then, a software architecture for ODSS that is capable of delivering coordination mechanisms for individually-developed DSS is presented. This work will be of interest to end-users and researchers involved with the fabrication and deployment of ODSS. In addition to the architecture, they will find important insights on how best to construct such software entities in the paper.