Internet Multiattribute Group Decision Support in Electronic Commerce

The rapid growth of the Internet has provided the means for distributed organizational decision making for electronic commerce. Members of organizations can jointly investigate products, exchange information, and make decisions on-line from remote sites. Internet-based multiattribute group decision making is characterized by three aspects, (i) individual interactive decision making, (ii) communication means, and (iii) group consensus reaching. The purpose of this research was to study the role of communication and individual decision strategies and their influence on multiattribute group decision making and consensus reaching in organizational electronic commerce settings. The results of this study indicate that analytic decision support is indispensable in collaborative Internet-based decision making, that a perfect match of analytic decision support and communication channels must be achieved, and that efficiency of individual decision support should be compromised for higher confidence in the group's decisions. The results of this study also confirm findings by Häubl and Trifts (2000) that interactive decision analytic support has positive effects on the quality and efficiency of individual decision making, and findings by Limayem and DeSanctis (2000) and Todd and Benbesat (2000), that decision makers will use normative decision models if they require little effort and if decisional guidance is provided. The conclusion drawn from this study is that the continuously evolving Internet technology for collaborative decision making is only one aspect for better organizational decision making – the crucial aspect, however, will be the development and optimal integration of analytic decision models, communication channels, and consensus reaching mechanisms.