Combining GDSS and Gaming for Decision Support

Both gaming and group (decision) support systems (GDSS) are frequently used to support decision-making and policymaking in multi-actor settings. Despite the fact that there are a number of ways in which gaming and GDSS can be used in a complementary manner, there are only sporadic examples of their combined use. No systematic overview or framework exists in which GDSS are related to the functions of gaming or vice versa. In this article, we examine, why, how and for what purpose GDSS can be used to enrich and improve gaming simulation for decision support, and vice versa. In addition to a review of examples found in the literature, four games are discussed where we combined gaming and GDSS for complex decision making in a multi actor context: incodelta, a game about transportation corridors; infrastratego, a game about a liberalizing electricity market; containers a drift, a game about the planning of a container terminal, and; dubes, a game about sustainable urban renewal. Based on the literature and these four experiences, a classification is presented of (at least) four ways in which GDSS and gaming can be used in a complementary or even mutually corrective, manner: the use of GDSS for game design, for game evaluation, for game operation and the use of gaming for research, testing and training of GDSS.     

Artificial Neural Systems as a Research Paradigm for the Study of Group Decision Support Systems

Artificial neural systems (ANSs) have received interest recently because of their ability to accurately forecast and classify data. Group decision support systems (GDSSs) also have received much interest for their support of group communication and decision making. This paper explores the potential of the ANS as a methodology for modeling the many complex, interrelated research variables involved in the field of GDSS. As an illustration, multilinear regression, an ANS with backpropagation, and an ANS with a genetic algorithm were developed to classify 133 subjects into verbal or GDSS groups based on their responses to a questionnaire. The ANSs with backpropagation and the genetic algorithm achieved higher classification accuracies (81.8 and 90.9%, respectively) than was achieved with multilinear regression (75.8%). Therefore, an ANS may more accurately model the many interrelationships occurring with GDSS group behavior.     

Participants' perceptions on the role of facilitators using Group Decision Support Systems

The impact of facilitation upon group meetings has been a topic of research and debate for over 40 years. However, with the emergence and increasing usage of Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS), the role of facilitators is once more being addressed. Facilitators aim to substantially increase the effectiveness of group working, making meetings more productive and efficient through the management of both content and process. However, while the benefit that facilitators can bring is acknowledged, developing the necessary skills and techniques is more problematic. There are few manuals for would-be faciliators to draw upon, and much of their ability is acquired through experience. This article therefore attempts to increase the knowledge available and to provide facilitators with some practical suggestions. The research focuses on a series of interviews with group members (participants) who had used a particular GDSS—Strategic Options Development and Analysis (SODA)—for organizational decision making. From the analysis of the interviews, a number of reoccurring issues were identified which are presented as a set of learning points. These cover not only the workshop/meeting itself, but also the pre-workshop and post-workshop stages. The article also reflects on the impact which these identified learning points have on design and future GDSS development.     

Exploring unheard voices: Best practices in interviewing women prosumers in Indian subsistence contexts

A growing body of literature is focused on subsistence markets and how marketing interventions can increase well-being for those whose daily existence is a struggle to ensure access to necessities of life. To understand the lifeworld of those living at the subsistence level, interviews are favored as a data collection tool. This methodological paper examines interviewing in the subsistence context with a focus on women whose lived experiences are affected by the intersection of gender, power imbalance, and culture. The study context is India. Specifically, we draw upon data from three previous author-conducted academic studies and conduct a reflective analysis that leads to a series of reflections and recommendations for the interview process. This paper calls for more work to be done in the area and raises the need for a new research paradigm rather than reliance on western-oriented approaches that may not fit the context.     

Facilitating computer-supported meetings: A cumulative analysis in a multiple-criteria task environment

There have been many instances of the ineffective applications of new information technology. This article describes a program of enhancing the effectiveness of a new technology, Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS), through a series of studies which resulted in improvements in the technology itself as well as in how the technology is supported. Our approach emphasizes human facilitation and facilitative features embedded in the GDSS software.     

Contrasting Single User and Networked Group Decision Support Systems for Strategy Making

The use of computers to support group work – as a Group Decision Support System (GDSS) – on strategy making has grown over the last decade. Some GDSS's have a facilitator managing the computer with the group viewing a public screen displaying the debate, problem definition, and agreements of the group as it negotiates strategies. Others involve members of the group in the direct input of data that forms part of the problem definition – data that is then used by the group employing electronic voting and other organizing devices. This paper discusses a real case relating to an organization seeking to reach important agreements about its strategy. The case involved the top management team and over 50 senior managers. The organization used a facilitator driven GDSS for some of this work, and a networked system for other parts. Some of the meetings were video taped, some were observed through one-way mirrors, and all of the participants were interviewed about their reactions to the different systems. This paper reports on some of the significant contrasts between the two approaches.     

Developing a Group Decision Support System for Advertising Media Evaluation: A Case in the Middle East

The importance of advertising media evaluation as a multifaceted problem is well known by both academics and practitioners. Although previous studies tried to optimize media evaluation, there still are some gaps and problems to address, particularly in areas of flexibility of models/frameworks, decision making quality, tension management, and agility of the evaluation process. Most of previous studies are based on inflexible models/frameworks that have limitations on number of criteria/alternatives they can consider and type of data they can process. A great volume of the work used arbitrary decision making; arbitrary decision making regarding criteria and media importance may reduce effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Furthermore, the academic literature offers little guidance on group decision aggregation, and tension management during decision making is neglected. Media evaluation is a time taking process and any acceleration will reduce pre-campaign costs. The main aim of this paper is to illustrate how a group decision support system (GDSS) can assist media planners to overcome mentioned problems more systematically. For this purpose, we developed a GDSS that is an integration of three well-known multi-criteria decision making techniques. With a real world case study, we illustrate the performance of the proposed GDSS. Results of our quantitative assessments indicate that the GDSS is flexible, allows decision makers to express their opinions, reduces tension among decision makers, and saves time.     

Evolution of group performance over time: A repeated measures study of GDSS effects

Many studies in the group decision support system (GDSS) literature have reported on the behavior and performance of ad hoc groups meeting for the first, and, in fact, the only time. Such one‐time studies of groups may not represent their longer term behavior and performance accurately. Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST) conceives of technology use as a social practice that emerges over time. AST suggests that meeting outcomes reflect the extent to which structures offered by the technology (such as GDSS tool sequences, meeting agenda, etc.) are faithfully appropriated by the group. Such faithful appropriation, however, takes time. This article explicitly recognizes the relevance of this appropriation process and reports on a lab study that examined the impact of computer support on group performance over time. In general, results showed that the performance of computer‐supported groups improved over time, whereas the performance of non‐computer‐supported groups stayed the same or declined. The number of alternatives generated by computer‐supported groups increased considerably as they became more proficient in incorporating the technology into group processes. However, the quality of decisions made by computer‐supported groups began to increase slightly, only during the last session. Both these findings suggest that AST is, in fact, a viable theory for studying group behavior and performance over time. Results from this study also point out the need for conducting more longitudinal studies of group processes in the future.     

Cooperation support through the use of group decision systems

This article considers the development of the group decision support system (GDSS) field both from organizational and technological perspectives. The growing importance of teamwork, lateral coordination, and activities integration inside modern business organizations is emphasized. Technological and knowledge specialization, quick transformation of business environments, reduction of response time, and so on, are some of the reasons that can explain the renewed relevance of teamwork. Also, the development of information technology (IT) is analyzed in relation to the role it is assuming in supporting group activities. Research in the GDSS field is then introduced. A proposal concerning the identification of three different phases in GDSS studies is developed, ranging from decision rooms to distributed systems. Each phase shows distinctive research topics and application fields, together with different organizational goals. Results of these developments are the growth of potential application areas of GDSS tools. These theoretical considerations, together with empirical experiences coming from the study of a real manufacturing environment (an IBM plant where group cooperation plays a fundamental role for production efficiency), constitute the basis for a research GDSS prototype (GROUPS). Prototype features are designed to support executives in facing production‐planning problems through an improvement in communications and in knowledge representation.     

Influence of Computer-Based Meeting Support on Process and Outcomes for a Divisional Coordinating Group

This research examines the introduction of computer-based group decision support systems (GDSS) to members of a division level coordinating group. Participants performed authentic problem formulation tasks which varied naturally in degree of structuredness, in two non-GDSS meetings then were provided GDSS for four additional meetings. It was proposed that the introduction of the GDSS and task structuredness would influence (1) group process in terms of the amount of divergent and convergent thinking communicated during meetings and (2) perceived outcomes regarding quality, satisfaction, understanding, confidence, and commitment to group positions. Results suggest that GDSS use affected both the total amount and pattern of group communication but not perceived outcomes. Structuredness of the task affected perceived outcomes but neither amount nor patterns of communication. Additional qualitative data regarding perceived of costs and benefits in using GDSS provide richer explanation for study findings and suggest further lines of inquiry.     

“Horses for courses”: A stakeholder approach to the evaluation of GDSSs

Evaluation of the performance of GDSSs has been dominated by an experimental and laboratory based approach. Other writers have argued for evaluation to be based in the “real-world” of decision making teams. The evaluation criteria have tended to ignore many of the issues that would be paramount for some of the stakeholders in the evaluation process. This article seeks to explore the criteria that might be used by a wide variety of stakeholders, including developers, facilitators, clients, key actors, vendors, as well as academics. By drawing together the criteria associated with all of the stakeholders we discover a broader, and possibly more thorough, framework for evaluation. The evaluation of any particular GDSS in relation to other GDSSs can then be seen in the context of contingent weighting applied to each of the criteria where each GDSS is able to be seen in its best light and in relation to its declared aims. This article argues for a more eclectic and contingent approach to the evaluation of GDSSs which will encourage their future development to be clearer about purpose and the boundaries of their use.     

Constructionist Theory to Explain Effects of GDSS

This paper analyses communication between actors as a major theoretical element in understanding the link between GDSS (Group Decision Support System) and the construction of shared meaning. The concept of shared meaning is discussed by using two schools of thought: Constructionism versus Constructivism. The schools differ in their approach to processes of communication and conversational techniques. Constructionist theory focuses on the necessity to activate process of intersubjectivity between individuals to reach shared meaning while constructivist theory focuses on process of negotiation. Arguments are given in this paper in favor of the Constructionist approach for dealing with the high complexity of the organizational issues involved in GDSS. The two theoretical approaches were operationalized under two different paradigms of communication: Intersubjective (Constructionist) versus Negotiative (Constructivist) and were compared in an experimental set-up. Better results were found for a GDSS based on the Constructionist paradigm.     

An object-oriented architecture for group decision support systems

An object-oriented GDSS can produce a rich environment for easily accessing software tools or applications running under a Graphical User Interface and can provide communication among meeting participants. This requires definition of (1) objects to manage the meeting and participant sessions, (2) applications that can run under these sessions, and (3) data storage and data communications capability that handle both private and shared data. This article suggests that a GDSS system can operate under three layers of software: an application-layer, a GDSS environment, and an operating system environment. It defines the structure and behavior of the GDSS environment layer in terms of (1) objects and messages used to communicate among these objects and (2) a message passing protocol between the GDSS environment and the other two layers. These specifications result in an architecture that is sufficiently modular to enable addition of various GDSS software. This article also discusses a prototype implementation of the architecture that is developed in Smalltalk and runs under Microsoft's Windows 3.0.     

How (not) to market socially responsible products: A critical research evaluation

Growing awareness of their obligations towards society leads an increasing number of companies to produce socially responsible products (SRPs). In order to develop suitable marketing and communication strategies, it is essential to have a realistic picture of consumer priorities, and in the light of these findings, of the viability of classical academic marketing approaches, such as Kotler's societal marketing concept. This study provides a qualitative evaluation of the contradictory research literature on consumer interest in SRP and an assessment of the usability of classical marketing approaches. It contributes essential insights to the ongoing academic debate about a conceptualisation of SRP marketing approaches. Also, it will allow practitioners more ease of access to this debate. Findings show that a majority of consumers prioritise conventional product features and demonstrate low interest in SRP. Consumer research which states otherwise is revealed as methodologically flawed. Most classical marketing approaches are shown to be unsuitable for SRP marketing and communication since they fail to take into account the widespread lack of consumer interest and/or focus on consumer features irrelevant to marketing SRP. Directions for future research on SRP marketing and communication strategies are outlined.     

产业集群研究的方法选择与工具应用

产业集群自从20世纪90年代以来一直是经济地理学、空间经济学与区域经济学研究的热点领域,国内外学者针对全球和地方产业集群现象从理论与实证方面进行了大量的深入研究。与以往学者在产业集群的综述研究中只是针对研究内容进行总结归纳不同,文章致力于从产业集群研究过程中的方法选择和工具运用两个新的角度,以产业集群理论的逻辑演化与研究进展为依托,全面系统地对产业集群的研究现状和趋势进行归纳总结,以期能将国内外的相关研究进行分类进而形成一个框架,并希望该研究能给现有的及未来的研究者提供必要的研究思路与启发。     

What Is Personalization? Perspectives on the Design and Implementation of Personalization in Information Systems

In e-commerce and mobile commerce, personalization has been recognized as an important approach element in customer relationships and Web strategies. However, there are wide differences in how this concept is defined, characterized, and implemented in the literature. In this article we present a high-level framework for classifying approaches to personalization that delineates fundamental assumptions about personalization in the literature and relates them to strategies for developing personalization systems. The framework consists of 2 parts: (a) a set of perspectives on personalization that guide the design of personalization systems at a general level and (b) a scheme for classifying how personalization can be implemented. The personalization perspectives represent 4 distinct schools of thought on the nature of personalization distilled from the literature of several fields. These perspectives are ideal types and we discuss them in terms of the motivation they supply for personalization, the goals and means of personalization, and the ways in which they conceptualize and model users. The implementation classification scheme is constructed on 3 dimensions of implementation choices. These 3 dimensions pertain to what to personalize (content, interface, functionality, channel), to whom to personalize (individuals or categories of individuals) as well as who does the personalization (implicit or explicit personalization). The personalization perspectives represent particular concepts of personalization that guide general design choices; these choices are implemented via the options described in the implementation classification scheme. The framework contributes to the development of a common theoretical basis for the study of personalization. We discuss implications of the framework for design of personalization systems and future research directions.     

Information for decision making in marketing: the use of Group Support Systems (GSS)

Group Support Systems (GSS) Technology is an information technology which seeks to support collaborative work. Extensively used to support organisational activities, it has not yet been tested to the full within the market research setting. The paper reports on a GSS focus group meeting to determine key questions of concern about the National Training Reform Agenda. Participants were leaders in a primary industry in Australia and the questions would be related to a public relations exercise. GSS provided the opportunity to deal with complex issues efficiently and yet preserve the conversational characteristics of the focus group meeting.     

Putting Quality First in Ideation Research

Teams use ideation techniques such as brainstorming to generate alternatives in response to a crisis or opportunity with the goal of converging on a few high-quality ideas. Ideation research, however, tends to focus on developing techniques that generate a large quantity of ideas, sometimes giving little attention to the cognitive mechanisms that give rise to good-quality ideas, or to the validity of the metrics by which ideation quality is measured . This study examines a theoretical link between idea quality and quantity in the ideation literature using Bounded Ideation Theory (BIT). BIT proposes that the relationship between participant ability and ideation quality is moderated by cognitive factors such as scarcity of attention resources, mental and physical exhaustion, understanding of the problem, and goal congruence, as well as attributes of the problem being addressed. Ideation quality is measured in the literature using a number of approaches which diverge to differing research conclusions, even when applied to the same data set. We use a Monte Carlo simulation to demonstrate conditions under which some of these measures exhibit a bias. We present theoretical and methodological arguments to support our call for future ideation research to shift its focus from quantity to quality by focusing on the cognitive factors that influence ideation quality and using unbiased measures of ideation quality.     

An Experimental Analysis of Face to Face versus Computer Mediated Communication Channels

Experimental research on Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) has generally focused on democratic groups whose members typically share the same objectives. In organizations, however, there are many situations where groups have a leader who has the power to override the group's recommendation, the objective of the leader may not be the same as the objective of each member, and not everyone may have the same information. This paper reports the results of an experiment in which the groups, having a designated leader, worked on a mixed-motive task. Within this context, we analyze group decision outcomes and processes for groups that use a face-to-face channel of cormnunication and those that utilize computer mediated communication. We compare performance of the leader and members with respect to an objective measure of performance, the efficient frontier. The results indicate that for this task groups using face-to-face channel outperform groups using computer mediated communication.