Reference Disciplines of Decision Support Systems

Abstract

This chapter identifies the roots of decision support system (DSS) research and empirically investigates the intellectual relationship between the DSS subspecialties and the reference disciplines, using author cocitation analysis of an author cocitation frequency matrix derived from an extensive database of DSS literature covering the period of 1971 through 1999. The chapter traces a unidirectional flow of intellectual materials to the DSS area from its reference disciplines to probe how concepts and findings by researchers in the contributing disciplines have been picked up by DSS researchers to be applied, extended, and refined in the development of DSS research subspecialties. Author cocitation analysis uncovers several contributing disciplines including multiple-criteria decision making, cognitive science, organization science, artificial intelligence, psychology, communication theory, and systems science.