An interactive decision support system for technology transfer pertaining to organization and management

Abstract

This study provides a review of the elements considered sufficient to build and operationalize a decision support system (DSS) designed to assist managers at various organization levels with their decision making requirements. It categorizes capabilities of various decision aids and correlates these capabilities with the characteristics of specific organizational variables in order to examine the context in which DSS's operate. The concept of the three-dimensional contingency matrix is used as an initial point of model development. Expansion of the matrix to n-dimensional is suggested and n = 6 is used to extend the paradigm. A conceptual six-variables organization framework is proposed where the interrelationships among characteristics of the six variables and general capabilities of decision aiding systems are described by a series of IF...THEN production rules. Finally, data are collected and a computer model based on artificial intelligence heuristics (production systems) is created to examine the consequences of various organization - DSS interactions. This prototype decision aiding system is referred to as DECAIDS. Many conceptual organization models and DSS schemes have been developed. Operationalizing these concepts has not been accomplished due to the lack of an adequate tool or device to manipulate such complexity. DECAIDS is intended to demonstrate the feasibility of applying modern heuristic methods to effectively and dynamically model organizational interactions