Abstract
This article reviews the literature-based issues involved in implementing large-scale decision-making support systems (DMSSs). Unlike previous studies, this review studies holistically three types of DMSSs (model-based decision support systems, executive-oriented decision support systems, and knowledge-based decision support systems) and incorporates recent studies on the simulation of the implementations process. Such an article contributes to the literature by organizing the fragmented knowledge on the DMSS implementation phenomenon and by communicating the factors and stages involved in successful or failed large-scale DMSS implementations to practitioners.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Implementation Process: This is the complex and long-term process where multiple organizational, financial, technical, and human-based factors interact since the acknowledgement or discovering of a new technology until the total institutionalization of the system.
Model-Based Decision Support System (DSS): A model-based DSS is “an interactive computer-based system composed of a user-dialog system, a model processor and a data management system, which helps decision makers utilize data and quantitative models to solve semi-structured problems” (Forgionne et al., 2005, p. 765).
Implementation Failure: It is an implementation project that is cancelled during its development, is ended with a system underutilized, or is removed early with relevant financial and organizational losses.
Large-Scale Decision-Making Support System (DMSS): A DMSS is an information system designed to support some, several, or all phases of the decision-making process that demands substantive financial, organizational, human, technical, and knowledge resources for being deployed in organizations.
Knowledge-Based Decision Support System: This is “a computer based system composed of a user-dialog system, an inference engine, one or several intelligent modules, a knowledge base and a work memory, which emulates the problem-solving capabilities of a human expert in a specific domain of knowledge” (Forgionne et al., 2005, p. 765).
Executive-Based Decision Support System: This is “a computer based system composed of a user-dialog system, a graph system, a multidimensional database query system and an external communication system, which enables decision makers to access a common core of data covering key internal and external business variables by a variety of dimensions (such as time and business unit)” (Forgionne et al., 2005, p. 765).