Pii: S0969-6016(00)00028-9

We view group decision making as a collaborative process, where decision makers can establish a common belief on the dimensions of the problem by following a series of well-de®ned communicative actions. Having ®rst de®ned these actions, this paper reports on the exploitation of recent advances in information and communication technology, which can be used to: (i) remove the communication impediments among spatially dispersed decision makers; (ii) eciently elicit and represent the domain of knowledge; (iii) develop ecient mechanisms to structure and consistently maintain the decision analysis; and (iv) automate the decision making process itself. Automation concerns coherence and consistency checking, detection of contradictions, truth maintenance, and information retrieval techniques. 7 2000 IFORS. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.