Bridging the Socio-technical Gap in Decision Support Systems

The socio-technical gap is the great divide between social activities such as coordination which researchers and practitioners aim to support and those that are actually supported by technology. As the social interaction takes place through technology, it is changed and mediated by the technology. This gap between the two dimensions is being challenged by new and innovative approaches such as cognitive ergonomics and Web 2.0/3.0. Research in Decision Making (DM) theory and Decision Support Systems (DSS) shows that this gap is due in part to technical limitations and in part to the complexity of the contexts where decision support must be provided. Thus, DSS researchers face important questions concerned with the encapsulation of complex social aspects of managerial decision making, as well as with the representation of key human cognitive mechanisms, such as intuition and insight, within computational systems.

This book presents the latest innovations and advances in decision support theory and practice with a special focus on bridging the socio-technical gap. These achievements will be of interest to all those involved in decision making activities and research. The book covers a wide range of topics including: Understanding DM, Design of DSS, Web 2.0 Systems in Decision Support, Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing, Applications of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, Intelligent DM, Context in DM, Knowledge Management, ERP Systems, Decision Support for Policy Making, Decision Making in Emergency Scenarios, Decision Support in Commerce, and Decision Support for Production Planning.