Collaborative Decision-Making: Concepts and Supporting Information and Communication Technology Tools and Systems

Abstract

Collaboration means in substance that several entities such as humans, computers, robots, enterprises and so on jointly perform a certain task instead of working individually so that a better result could be obtained. Decision-making is a specific form of activity, commonly carried out by human agents, which is meant to eventually select a certain course of action which is expected to result in attaining a desired result. The chapter is meant to present a concise and balanced view of the basic concepts and main classes of supporting information and communication tools and systems regarding decision-making processes carried out by several collaborating human agents called participants. The reasons for collaboration are briefly explained followed by an exposure of collaboration application in the multi-participant decision-making settings. Having presented the classification of decision problems and decision-making units, the main phases of a specific multi-participant form of Herbert Simon’s decision process model are described followed by the presentation of two main forms of close and soft collaboration, namely consensus building and crowdsourcing, respectively. The need for technology support offered to collaborating participants is justified and two main classes of decision supporting systems, namely Decision support systems and the ever more largely used platforms, are addressed. A practical example of an open ended and evolving platform is presented. Open questions about the further role the information and communication tools in multi-participant decision-making processes are eventually formulated from two perspectives, digital humanism and dataism, respectively.