(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,Vol. 9, No. 9, September 2011
Empirical Study of Evolution of Decision MakingFactors from 1990-2010.
Mohammed Suliman Al-Shakkah*
School of Computing, College of Arts and Sciences
University Utara Malaysia, UUM06010 UUM-Sintok, Kedah, Malaysiaalshakkah_11@yahoo.com alshakkah@gmail.com
Wan Rozaini Sheik Osman
School of Computing, College of Arts and Sciences
University Utara Malaysia, UUM06010 UUM-Sintok, Kedah, Malaysiarozai174@uum.edu.my
Abstract
—The intense competition make DM process importantfor their survival. There are many factors that affect DM in alltypes of organizations, especially business. In this qualitativestudy the result has come out with new view for the decisionmaking processing through (observing) analyzing the ninedecision making factors from 1990-2010 from 210 papers whichwere selected randomly from the available resources. Sevenpartitions were made for the time period of three years and 30papers for each period. Qualitative method was used here. Byanalyzing figures and chart with Microsoft excel, the ninedecision making factors were categorized into two groups. Themain group consists of five factors: time, cost, risk, benefits, andresources. While the second group of the factors consists of four:financial impact, feasibility, intangibles, and ethics. However,time was the most relevant factor at all. More researches indecision making are needed to solve the problems inorganizations and in different scopes related to decisions.
Keywords- Decision making (DM); decision making process(DMP); decision support system (DSS).
I.
I
NTRODUCTION
Decisions affect a lot of life activities and they are neededby many people in different levels [1]. Information System(IS) is an important area, a review in IS research showed itseffect on decision making and the success of organizations [7],[8]. In addition to, IS has several subsets such as DecisionSupport Systems (DSS). A DSS is a computer based system(an application program) capable of analyzing anorganizational data and then presents it in a way that helps thedecision makers to make business decisions more efficientlyand effectively. Besides that, organizations are so dependenton IS, that is urgent attention are focus on those factors that canhelp decision makers in processing their decisions efficientlyand effectively [9].This importance of decisions gave motivation to see howto improve decision making in organizations. The purpose of this study is to shed a light on what affects decision makingprocess. Studying decision making factors will increase theunderstanding of this process of making decisions. In thispaper, the frequency of decision making factors is counted overa period of twenty years. More clear vision of decision makingwill presented through answering the following two questions:follow.
•
What are the factors that are important in decisionmaking processing which previously?
•
What are the relevant factors in decision making forthe period 1990-2010?Before we start discussing these questions, it is good toknow that in the perspective of information systemmanagement field, the programmers and researchers hadcreated the decision support system (DSS) to help in makingdecisions without consultant or detailed analysis [2], DSSfirstly created to support decision makers in organizations.However, in the large context such as organization, technologywould become a good enabler to support distributed decisionmaking [3].II.
D
ECISION MAKING
A.
Decision Making Factors
Many examples of bad decisions cost organizations a lot of money [4]. A suggestion for instructions and steps thatimproves the quality of decisions, hence results in betterdecisions. Also [4] asserted nine decision making factors thatwere presented as: Time, cost, risk, benefits, resources,financial impact, intangibles, ethics and feasibility. For this theresearcher reviewed other researches for these factors in thefollowing section.
B.
Previous work
In the beginning from the previous factors, it is good to startby time which was intended as time for implementing thealternative and the effect of delay [4]. This factor is veryimportant and is needed in dynamic decision making [10]. Inaddition, time is so important for managers through theirsingular decision making, they face unstructured problemswhich need to be processed quickly [11].Cost meant to be cost of the alternatives and its suitabilityto the budget [4]. Other researcher as [12] proposed algorithmto make the optimal decision making with intelligent decisionmaking systems, cost-benefit analysis was used and trials was
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(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,Vol. 9, No. 9, September 2011
done to reduce cost with the same benefit. In the same meaningof lowest cost was by [13] in automation 2.0. Also, a casestudy was applied for the decision support system courses ondocumentation of the web-based cost estimator for applicationAl-Sawaf Trading Center [14].Risk is related to this alternative [4], where risk is inherentin every activity made by the person, and risk insight with tohelp decision makers in their decision making process [15]. Aaffect which is as a feeling-state that from good to bad help indecision making for the manager to care with their choices[16]. For the benefit factor which is the profits fromimplementing this alternative [4], some of the recommendationsystems can modalize the customer decision making with highlevel of decision variable benefits for in the decision makingprocess [17]. Also, using question answering which is relatedwith ontology technique and the data warehousing throughapplication business intelligence bring a lot of benefits for thedecision makers [18].Resources which is for each alternative, the requiredresources are available [4], In the other hand, using analyticalhieratical process (AHP) in decision making process throughthe available resources help decision makers for betterdecisions [19]. Also, discussing the key concepts of the ITprocess management will centralize and control the availableresources in organizations [20]. Financial impact which mean the effect of costs with time[4]. In the other hand, financial impact of data accuracy on aninventory system is very important. This will lead throughusing technology to quantify investment in tracking system andmany benefits will be gained in decision making process [21].Also, some other examples of the computer- based informationsystem as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chainmanagement (SCM) are useful in information technologyinvestment for IT managers to reduce time and cost withinprocessing decisions i.e. which give a strong financial impactfor decision makers [22].Ethics factor is to see if this legal or not [4]. Otherresearcher revealed the ethical side of using internet technology[23], for human values as ethics, they are increasingly used andstill in use as a concept in different fields [24]. Also, the ethicalmultiplicity for different code of ethic through organizationswas discussed [25].Intangible is for what other unrecognized or suddenvariables [4]. In addition, intangible and tangible financialresources operated by organizations are very important [26],for helping decision makers, creating many alternatives canhelp in processing decisions, even these options related totangible or intangible resources [27]. Also, enterpriseinformation technology costs a lot of money and risky, soinformation technology asset for this set of tangible andintangible for operation considered [28].Feasibility which in the mean those alternatives can beimplemented realistically [4]. In addition, there is one methodof DSS as multi-alternative decision making properties thealternatives, and the feasibility of applying objective techniquein order to maximize numbers of alternatives which help inDMP [29]. Also, the benefit-cost deficit model was proposedto explain and predict barrier removal was feasibility; this willhelp decision makers in their DMP [30]. To sum up, for thenine factors mentioned it will be worthy if the decision makersin organizations look for in their DMP.The first question done, now for the second researchquestion: What are the most important factors in decisionmaking for any field? This and all these same meaningquestions will be answered in this paper with a qualitativeempirical study. The study was carried out on all the availableresources to study the decision making factors and how theychange with time, from the year 1990 until 2010.
C.
Processing the Decision Making
Researchers as [5]
studied the old decision makingmethods. They found that in the old method, the decisionmaking was art of the managers and it requires talents,experiences and intuitions, rather than a systematic method.While, in the modern method, there are four steps in decisionmaking: (1) Define the problem (difficulty or opportunity). (2)Construct a model that describes the real-world problem. (3)Identify the possible solutions to model the problem andevaluate the solutions. (4) Compare, choose and recommendpotential solutions to a problem. It has to be ensured thatsufficient alternative solutions are considered. Also in this book Simon`s steps were presented in four steps to process decisionmaking as: (1) Intelligence. (2) Design. (3) Choice. (4)Implementation. While, [4] gave five steps of decision makingprocess are stated as: (1) Establish a context for success. (2)Frame the issue properly. (3) Generate alternatives. (4)Evaluate the alternatives. (5) Choose the best alternative.In addition to, [6] clarified steps to the decision-makingprocess also by other researches were as: (1) Identify theproblem or issue. (2) Generate alternatives. (3) Ranking thealternatives and select one of them. (4) Implement the selectedalternative. (5) Evaluate the outcomes.However many researchers call for using the systematicway and they browse different steps, either if it is three, four, orfive steps the focus in all is the choosing stage which is themeaning of decision, with this also the need become more andmore to understand the important attributes (factors) from thenine attributes mentioned previously in the processing decisionmaking to help all types of decision makers to better decisions.for this paper intend to reveal these important an moreinterested in factors and how it changes with time, in the nextsection more details about how the work done.III.
METHODOLOGY
Since the interest is to count each factor is its frequency ineach year the qualitative method used in this paper, now theimportant thing appear how this will be done? The systematicway for this comes in the next sub-sections.
A.
Implementation of the Methodology
Here some steps were followed in this study as follows:Firstly in this study papers related for decision making factorswere selected randomly from the available resources, after thatspecify the search (advance search) from the year 1990 until
This work is
sponsored by
University Utara Malaysia
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(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,Vol. 9, No. 9, September 2011
2010, since technology change faster, the periods were dividedto seven periods and every period three years as follows:First period will be as [1990, 1991, 1992], for the secondperiod will be as [1993, 1994, 1995], for the third period willbe as [1996, 1997, 1998], for the fourth period will be as[1999, 2000, 2001], for the fifth period will be as [2002, 2003,2004], for the sixth period will be as [2005, 2006, 2007], andfor the last period will be [2008, 2009, 2010].Secondly from the related work in section 1.1 the ninefactors stated, after that tables prepared and from counting thetimes for the frequency for each factor, the randomly chosensamples were thirty for each period, data was resulted for eachperiod and the range was from zero to thirty for each factors inevery period.
TABLE
1.
YEARS
FOR
THE
PERIOD
:
[
,
,
]
# Title
A u t h or T i m e C o s t B e n e f i t s F i n an c i al l i m p a c t Ri s k R e s o ur c e I n t an gi b l e E t h i c F e a s i b i l i t y
1
…
2
…
……………………………
Total
Thirdly after tabulating data we go for representation thedata in an understandable, easy effective way, here we useMicrosoft excel to represent data by columns, lines, and sectorshere are the results: The data for nine factors and the sevenperiods were inserted.In brief all the work in section two was to get the datawhich is the basic thing needed from the resources for thedecision makers to process to support their decisions, after thatthe analysis by any simple tool can analyze the data which isfollowed in the next section.IV.
ANALYSISThrough the descriptive analysis a lot of figures wereresulted since the work has seven periods with nine factors; sosimple calculation it will be 63 figures if we want to browse atleast in two different chart types it will be 126 figures in takingeach variable alone, for the beneficial better to compare thefactors together to judge which is the more important for thisfrom the initial work some relevant figures will be browse herefor the purpose of this work, the comment about the figureswill in the next section.V.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
As mentioned previously we will browse and commenton the important figures; for that will put it in the followingsub-sections:
Figure 1.The nine decision making factors in the first period 1990-1992.
Based on Figure 1 the factors for decision making takevary. The number of frequency for time is highest than otherfactors followed by resources, until lowest number of frequency such as ethics and intangibles. Therefore the firstfive factors with higher number of frequencies can beconsidered as: time, cost, benefits, risk, and resources.
Figure 2. The nine decisions making factors for the year from 1993-1995.
From Figure 2 to rank descending the factors of decisionmaking related to their frequencies it will be as: time, cost,benefits, while risk and resources equal in the fifth position,then the rest of factors.
Figure 3. The nine decisions making factors for the year from 1996-1998.
Here in Figure 3 the factors representation obvious as theprevious results taking steps shape from time followed by costthen benefits, then the rest of the attributes.
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Empirical Study of Evolution of Decision making Factors from 1990-2010
The intense competition make DM process important for their survival. There are many factors that affect DM in all types of organizations, especially business. In this qualitative study the result has come out with new view…
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