Claims, Arguments, and Decisions: Formalisms for Representation, Gaming, and Coordination

Abstract

Decisions in large corporations continually evolve from several group processes, shaping the focus of business activities over time. These decisions arise out of a combination of formal analyses and less formal interactions among decision makers. We address the pragmatics of group decision processes from the perspective of argumentation and analysis. We develop formalisms for the representation of argumentative knowledge, gaming the argumentation process and the coordination of the games. The representation formalism provides a framework for organizing the logic underlying the claims and arguments in a group. The gaming formalism provides a framework for conducting and regulating the group interactions. The coordination formalism addresses the issues of scheduling the games and the resolution process. The three formalisms together constitute the basis for designing computer-assisted systems that support argumentation processes in groups. We introduce the term Argumentative Reasoning Facilitation Systems (ARFS), and develop a framework for their design. These systems would serve to record, organize, regulate and coordinate argumentative decision processes in organizations. The formalisms provide new windows for research on novel applications of decision support systems in organizations. Some of the systemic, organizational and behavioral research issues identified from this work are also presented.