Hierarchical scaling of marketing decision support systems

Marketing Decision Support Systems (MDSS) show a large variety in functionality and form. In this paper a scale is developed that measures the sophistication of a Marketing Decision Support System. This scale, based on Guttman's Scalogram Analysis, is hierarchical in nature: more sophisticated MDSS have (also) the capabilities of less sophisticated systems but not the other way around. Items, used to construct the scale, are the presence or absence of specific functional features in a particular MDSS. The scale was applied to the marketing decision support systems of 194 Dutch companies and passed the consistency tests for a Guttman scale. Also the scale values appeared to correlate with specific company variables (size, industry, number of data sources etc.) in an interpretable way. Although this one-dimensional sophistication scale was specifically developed for Marketing Decision Support Systems, the concept is very well applicable to Decision Support Systems in general. Such a scale can contribute to a more systematic approach in the empirical study of Decision Support Systems.