| Group decision support system (GDSS) effectiveness, despite the enthusiastic descriptions of early studies, remains a point of contention in the information systems literature. This problem is further compounded by the limited theoretical base of GDSS research and by an absence of validation testing on the research frameworks used to perform GDSS research. An extensive review of the foundation, theoretical, and empirical GDSS literature reveals that there is no systematic framework on which to base GDSS research. A research framework is proposed. The proposed research framework is supported by a process oriented definition of GDSS, a taxonomy of application environments, and GDSS application design guidelines. The proposed applications environment taxonomy was subjected to a cursory validation test to determine usefulness and was found to provide satisfactory descriptive power. |
