Concepts for the Design of a Manager-Centric Global Decision Support System for Organizations

Introduction

This chapter extends and refines the concept of a Global Decision Support System for Organizations structured and interfaced from a management perspective. Taking the management perspective in structuring and interfacing was called a Manager-centric Global Decision Support System for Organizations (MODSSO) presented in Garrido and Faria (2012).

The extension consists in including action as the universal function of people in an organization, therefore the first function to support at the global level of the organization, even if the goal is to support decision. Decisions are a type of actions that select other actions to be executed. Therefore, global decision support in an organization requires and presupposes global action support.

If decisions are a subset of actions then support to decisions should be included in action support. Anyone realizing an action may need or benefit from taking conscious decisions in the process of realization. Recognizing this, a manager centric interface to global decision support must be universal for all people in the organization and be provided as a resource to global action support.

The refinements consist first in defining the managerial function more precisely. What distinguishes managers from non-managers is managers can take decisions on which actions other people in the organization must execute. Second, the model used for decision processes is given an organization integrated functional expression as belonging to an arch of perception and judgment followed by decision and action influencing the organization, the world the organization is in, or both.