Conversation Oriented Decision Support Systems for Organizations - Enterprise Information Systems Design, Implementation and Management: Organizational Applications - page 127

related. I envisage the function of a CODSS as
giving support to every UDP and to every CDP.
If Y corresponds to a whole organization then its
CDP becomes the global conversational decision
process of the organization.
Here, I consider three issues in conceiving
support to CDPs: the address space of each per-
son, relating and linking decision processes, and
explicitly mapping decision processes.

will nest D 2 if D 2 has been triggered by D 1 , and
the completion or closing of D 1 does depend on
the completion of D 2 .
If a CODSS allows to tag decision processes
in terms of their sequencing and nesting relations
(and the associated implementation of decisions)
it will be possible to develop visualizations and
analysis of the unfolding of CDPs, a most useful
possibility.
Other possibilities of relating and linking are
of interest. Decision processes can be classified by
type. Assuming that a CODSS will keep the records
of most decision processes in an organizational
domain, such information can be explored to look
for similar decision problems, best solutions, or
to develop facilitators for people to raise issues.

the Address space of each person

It is clear that one cannot expect much usefulness
from raising issues to people if they are unrelated
to their interests - or if the people cannot contrib-
ute to deciding on them. Therefore, the following
question arises. Should a person be allowed to
raise issues to any organizational domain? In
other words, as information overload should be
minimized, which should be the address space of
each person to raise issues? A seemingly natural
criterion seems to define such address space as
the set of all subsets of people in the organization
to which the person belongs. Say that a person
belongs to department X of division Y of organiza-
tion U . Then she can pose decisions to X or to Y or
to U . Such arrangement expectably will preserve
relevance of raised issues, participation of people,
and promote clear thinking about decisions.

explicitly Mapping
decision processes

The conceptual architecture presented for a
CODSS raises the possibility of explicitly map-
ping the CDPs and their constituent processes
in several ways, for example, through textual or
graphical visualizations.
I think this is a most advantageous possibility
to consider, explore and exploit. Such mapping
would allow for a clear conscience among people
in any organizational domain of (i) the issues at
stake, (ii) their relative importance, (iii) the ex-
istence of decision processes, and (iv) how these
could be changed and made more efficient.
This view makes more explicit the role
CODSSs can have in organizational learning:
they will be devices through which people learn
to decide better either alone or collectively.

relating and Linking
decision processes

Relating and linking decision processes in a CDP
can be seen to happen along and inside organiza-
tional domain levels, for example, from a division
to its departments and then up again or from a
department to other departments. Two possible
relations of decision processes, which give natu-
rally rise to linking, are sequencing and nesting .
I will say that decision process D 1 will be in
sequence with D 2 if D 2 has been triggered by
D 1 , but the completion or closing of D 1 does not
depend on D 2 . I will say that decision process D 1

future reseArch directions

Any decision process has a cost in itself, and go-
ing for a CODSS as described will have inherent
costs, in investment, setting up and operating the
system. Profitability will depend on synergistic