Influence of model management systems on decision making: empirical evidence and implications

Abstract

Model management (MM) regards decision models as an important organisational resource deserving prudent management. Despite the remarkable volume of model management literature compiled over the past twenty-odd years, very little is known about how decision makers actually benefit from employing model management systems (MMS). In this paper, we report findings from an experiment designed to verify the idea that the adequacy of modeling support provided by a MMS influences the decision maker's problem solving performance and behaviour. We show that the decision makers who receive adequate modelling support from MMS outperform those without such support. Also, we provide empirical evidence that the MMS help turn the decision makers' perception of problem solving from a number crunching task into development of solution strategies, consequently changing their decision making behaviour.

Keywords:

• model management systems
• decision support systems
• problem complexity
• solution strategy
• qualitative analysis
• decision making behaviour