Abstract
Making organizational decisions is a critical and central activity to successful operations of profit and nonprofit-based organizations (Huber, 1990; Simon, 1997). Organizational paradigm evolution from the paternalistic/political and accountability/bureaucratic organizational paradigms toward process-oriented and decisional views (Huber & McDaniel, 1986) has also fostered the organizational relevance of such processes. Some studies suggest that decision-making ineffectiveness is the main cause for top executive firings in large corporations (Rowe & Davis, 1996). Others state the need to find possible solutions/decisions to the new critical and complex world problems (such as pollution, poverty or corruption) (McCosh & Correa-Perez, 2006) and make better strategic business managerial decisions (Savolein & Liu, 1995). Consequently, how to do so becomes a relevant research stream for academicians and has strong practical implications for decision-makers.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Knowledge-Based Decision Support Systems (ES/KBS): 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).
Decision-Making Situation: Is an organizational situation that demands for a managerial decision-making process to avoid organizational damages, to improve organizational performance, or to keep the organizational state.
Decision-Making Process (in a broad sense): Is “the sensing, exploration and definition of problems and opportunities as well as the generation, evaluation and selection of solutions” and the implementation and control of the actions required to support the course of action selected (Huber & McDaniel, 1986).
Decision-Making Process (in a narrow sense): Is the process of selecting the course of action that best meets the decision criteria, subject to the constraints inherent in the decision-making situation.
Intelligent Decision-Making Support System (DMSS): Is an information system designed to support some, several, or all phases of the decision making process (Forgionne et al., 2005).