Decision Support Systems: Concepts and Resources for Managers

For MIS specialists and nonspecialists alike, teacher and consultant Dan Power provides a readable, comprehensive, understandable guide to the concepts and applications of decision support systems. Not only does his book help enhance your DSS design and development capabilities, it also shows how DSS can buttress organization goals and the impact DSS have throughout organizations and at all levels of management. Power defines DSS broadly: interactive computer-based systems and subsystems that help people use computer communications, data, documents, knowledge, and models to solve problems and make decisions. He focuses his book on practical applications, but also includes important and relevant empirical research and underlying theory. His book thus provides enough concrete detail to help grasp the essentials of DSS, but it also gives advanced tips and suggestions to DSS specialists too. For people trained in fields outside the information sciences, Power’s book is especially valuable. It gives them the knowledge they need to work with their MIS colleagues and to truly appreciate the management value of information technology overall.

Power makes clear that decision support systems differ and that managers must specify what they want, based on their needs and the purposes to which the systems will be put. They should know how to build DSS and understand the basics of networking, security, and web-based DSS. Thus, of special interest is the structure that Power uses to organize his book. In Chapter 1 he presents an expanded framework for categorizing DSS. Chapters 2-5 provide a general managerial and technical perspective on building DSS. In Chapters 7 through 11 he lays out the details and gives examples of the general types of DSS. The last chapter, Evaluating Decision Support System Projects, reviews and discusses the tools and issues associated with assessing proposals for DSS projects. The book also includes a glossary and DSS audit questions, giving it special, ongoing value to all readers.

DANIEL J. POWER is Professor of Information Systems and Management at the College of Business Administration, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls. He holds a doctorate in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has developed decision support software and systems, and has examined the impacts of DSS on managers in his research studies. Power has published numerous book chapters and proceedings papers and has authored more than 20 articles for the important journals of his field. He also serves as Editor of DSSResources.com, the knowledge repository about computerized systems that support decision making.