Interweaving knowledge management, argumentation and decision making in a collaborative setting: the KAD ontology model

Admitting that ontologies are a means to accomplish a shared understanding of different knowledge domains and to facilitate sharing and reuse of bodies of knowledge across groups and applications, this paper presents an ontology model, namely KAD, which applies to argumentative discourses carried out in collaborative decision making settings. The proposed model interweaves concepts from the Knowledge Management, Argumentation Theory, Decision Making, and Multicriteria Decision Aid disciplines. Through the case of manufacturing management, it is shown that KAD can be easily expanded in order to apply to any particular knowledge domain, after the proper definition of the relevant semantics.