Eight key issues for the decision support systems discipline

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Decision Support Systems 44 (2008) 657 – 672 www.elsevier.com/locate/dss Eight key issues for the decision support systems discipline ☆
David Arnott a,⁎, Graham Pervan b a Centre for Decision Support and Enterprise Systems Research, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia b Curtin Business School, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia
Received 2 May 2006; received in revised form 26 August 2007; accepted 23 September 2007
Available online 29 September 2007

Abstract
This paper integrates a number of strands of a long-term project that is critically analysing the academic field of decision support systems (DSS). The project is based on the content analysis of 1093 DSS articles published in 14 major journals from 1990 to 2004. An examination of the findings of each part of the project yields eight key issues that the DSS field should address for it to continue to play an important part in information systems scholarship. These eight issues are: the relevance of DSS research, DSS research methods and paradigms, the judgement and decision-making theoretical foundations of DSS research, the role of the IT artifact in DSS research, the funding of DSS research, inertia and conservatism of DSS research agendas, DSS exposure in general
“A” journals, and discipline coherence. The discussion of each issue is based on the data derived from the article content analysis.
A number of suggestions are made for the improvement of DSS research. These relate to case study research, design science, professional relevance, industry funding, theoretical foundations, data warehousing, and business intelligence. The suggestions should help DSS researchers construct high quality research agendas that are relevant and rigorous.
© 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Decision support systems; Group support systems; Executive information systems; Data warehousing; Business intelligence; Review

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