Decision Support Systems Concept

INTRODUCTION Since the late 1960s, researchers have been developing and implementing computerized systems to support management decision makers. A number of decision support system (DSS) typologies were proposed in the early 1980s (Alter, 1980; Sprague & Carlson, 1982), but technology developments and new applications led to an expanded DSS framework (Power, 2000a, 2000b, 2001). The expanded DSS framework that is explained in detail in Power (2002b) helps decision makers and DSS developers understand and categorize decision support projects as well as existing decision support systems. Many terms are used to describe decision support systems. For example, some vendors and managers use the terms business intelligence, collaborative systems, computationally oriented DSS, data ware-housing, model-based DSS, and online analytical processing (OLAP) software to label decision support systems. Software vendors use these more specialized terms for both descriptive and marketing purposes. The terms used to describe decision support capabilities are important in making sense about what technologies have been deployed or are needed. Some DSSs are subsystems of other information systems and this integration adds to the complexity of categorizing and identifying DSSs. In general, decision support systems are a broad class of information systems used to assist people in decision-making activities (Power, 2004). Decision support systems can " take on many different forms and can be used in many different ways " (Alter, 1980, p. 71). DSSs differ in terms of capabilities and targeted users of a specific system, and in terms of how the DSS is implemented and what it is called. Some DSSs focus on data, some on models, and some on facilitating communications and collaboration. DSSs also differ in scope: Some DSSs are intended for one primary user and are used as a stand-alone program on a personal computer for analysis, and other DSSs are intended for many users in an organization and are deployed as enterprise-wide Web-based systems.