An Integrated Perspective on Designing Management Support Systems

This research presents a new integrated framework for the design of management support systems (MSSs). Three different views of decision making (outcome, process, and leaming) are combined with three different role (automate, informate, and stimulate) and system (restrictiveness, guidance, and customizability) perspectives. The role perspective focuses on the intended impact of the MSS on the decision maker(s) and the system perspective emphasizes the impact of the MSS system design on the decision support possibilities. The dominant matches in the proposed integrated framework (outcome, automate, and restrictiveness), (process, informate, and guidance), and (learning, stimulate, and customizability) define the typical decision making situations and have implications for the design of appropriate MSSs. The implementation of these conceptuel ideas are illustrated in Brandframe, a MSS for supporting a brand manger in the domain of fast moving consumer goods.