A critical analysis of decision support systems research

This paper critically analyses the nature and state of decision support systems (DSS) research. To provide context for the analysis, a history of DSS is presented which focuses on the evolution of a number of sub-groupings of research and practice: personal decision support systems, group support systems, negotiation support systems, intelligent decision support systems, knowledge managementbased DSS, executive information systems/business intelligence, and data warehousing. To understand the state of DSS research an empirical investigation of published DSS research is presented. This investigation is based on the detailed analysis of 1,020 DSS articles published in 14 major journals from 1990 to 2003. The analysis found that DSS publication has been falling steadily since its peak in 1994 and the current publication rate is at early 1990s levels. Other findings include that personal DSS and group support systems dominate research activity and data warehousing is the least published type of DSS. The journal DSS is the major publishing outlet; US ‘Other’ journals dominate DSS publishing and there is very low exposure of DSS in European journals. Around two-thirds of DSS research is empirical, a much higher proportion than general IS research. DSS empirical research is 1 Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Gemma Dodson for research assistance, especially in obtaining articles and coding, and Peter O’Donnell for discussions about DSS history. The research was partially supported by a Monash University Small Grant and a Curtin University Visiting Professorship. Preliminary results from the empirical study were presented at the 2004 IFIP International Conference on Decision Support Systems, Prato, Italy and the 2004 Australasian Conference on Information Systems, Hobart, Australia.