Task Force on Case Studies in Decision Making and Decision Support

Chair of the task force Frederick Adam University College Cork Ireland

Email: FAdam@afis.ucc.ie

An Agenda for Research

The task force's research activities focus on: learning from case studies of decision making and decision support.

Our interest is primarily in a mode of research which focuses on single instances of phenomena, such that n = 1. This however, is not sufficient as this focus on single cases has sometimes been associated with (or criticised for) excessively descriptive types of research. Our aim therefore is to carry out such studies of single cases in a way that ensures that conceptualisation is always achieved at the end and that specific, observable and useable research findings are derived.

The accumulation of cases carried out can then be used to build up theories and frameworks of broad applicability to our field.
In this context, members of the task force have expressed interest in using the case study approach in a number of directions:

1. Decision Support and teaching / learning
2. Support for Interdisciplinary Teams
3. Physical environments for Decision Making
4. Information and Communication Technologies for Decision Support
5. Decision Making in the Adaptive organisation
6. Knowledge embeddedness in Decision Systems / Impact on organisational agility

Whilst it was noted that such a diversity of domains cannot possibly be researched by a small group of researchers, the existence of rich future perspectives within the group was an encouraging sign. Individuals have expressed interest in seeking to collaborate towards at least 3 of these directions and this will provide a springboard for the longer term future of the task force. These directions may find a home on the task force’s web site assuming that moderators come forward for them.

Publication of Task Force Work

The work of the group is being published in a special issue of the Journal of Decision Systems, which will appear in 2008. It will feature the best papers from the Paris, London, Budapest and Samos meetings of the task force (the task force held a special session at the full IFIP 8.3 meeting in Prato). This issue is being edited by David Sammon and Patrick Humphreys and will be published in March 2008.

Additionally, a book is being prepared on the specific topic of learning from case studies in decision making and decision support. This book will be in two parts: a first methodological part which will present a number of key chapters on how to research and write rich case studies and a second part with a selection of cases provided by task force members. Each case will be designed to demonstrate particular aspects of case study research and case study use in teaching. Many such cases are already available within the task force. Frederic Adam is leading this project. He has approached two major editors with this project and the feed back is good. The detailed call for chapters will be issued as soon as the contract with the publisher is signed.

Fourth meeting of the task force

Budapest March 31- 1 April 2005

The task force met in Cork in April 2007 for a workshop where 12 papers were presentedThe theme of this meeting was inspired by a paper recently published in MIS Quarterly on Mindful Adoption of technology (by Swanson and Ramiller, 2004) to encourage researchers to reflect on how to understand how firms really work, what makes them tick, how they make decisions. Such work is particularly useful when it is applied in the context of specific case studies of individual organisations, because the topic only becomes interesting when one manages to penetrate the intricacies of what happens behind the scenes in organisations. Research on how firms can self-analyse their processes and get a handle on their true strengths and weaknesses are also extremely interesting

Click here for details of the papers

Third meeting of the Task force

Budapest March 31- 1 April 2005

The 3rd meeting of the Learning from Case studies in Decision Making and Decision Support task force tookplace in Budapest, hosted jointly by Csaba Csáki and Péter Gelléri (Decision Technologies Research Group, Budapest University of Technology and Economics) and Zita Zoltay Paprika (Corvinus University of Budapest, Department of Decision Science).
The meeting was attended by 17 researchers from 5 different countries, eight of whom are long term members of the task force and 9 of whom were attending for the first or second time (click here to download full lists of attendees and task force members)

Over the two days of the meeting, a total of 12 research presentations were given to the group in a true workshop atmosphere with much feed back and discussions
(click here for full schedule of the presentations, some of which are downloadable.)

A technical report is being prepared by the organisers (supported by the Budapest University of Technology and Economics), which will be available for distribution to all IFIP 8.3 members at the end of June 2005 (if all things go smoothly).
The meeting begun and closed with two business meetings, one being the continuation of the other. The discussions at these meeting progressed the following:

Second meeting of the Task force

Case Studies of Decision Making and Decision Support

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