Relationships between the decision support system subspecialities and reference disciplines: An empirical investigation

Abstract

This is a comprehensive study, that, by means of an empirical assessment of the DSS literature, systematically identifies the DSS reference disciplines and traces 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. Cluster analysis was employed to an author cocitation frequency matrix derived from a comprehensive database of the DSS literature over the period of 1970 through 1993. Twelve clusters were uncovered consisting of six major areas of DSS research (group DSS, foundations, model management, user interfaces, implementation, and multiple criteria DSS) and six contributing disciplines (multiple criteria decision making, cognitive science, organization science, artificial intelligence, group decision making, and systems science).