Intelligent Decision-Making Support Systems: A Strategic Research Agenda

About 25 years ago, the Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon and other top Management Science/Operations Research (MS/OR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers, suggested that an integration of the two disciplines would improve the design of decision making support tools in organizations. The suggested integrated system has been called an intelligent decision-making support system (i-DMSS). In this paper, we use an existing conceptual framework posed to assess the capabilities and limitations of the i-DMSS concept, and through a conceptual meta-analysis research of the Decision Support System (DSS) and MS/OR literature from 1980 to 2004, we develop a strategic assessment of the initial proposal. Such an analysis reveals support gaps that suggest for further development of the initial i-DMSS concept. We offer recommendations for making the indicated improvements in i-DMSS design, development, and application.