A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYZING THE INFORMATION MONITORING AND DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEM INVESTMENT TRADEOFF DILEMMA - AN APPLICATION TO CRISIS MANAGEMENT

The simplest form of a system consists of an input, a process which ad ds value to the input, and an output containing actionable information . The value of the output from a system is a function of not only the quality of the input but also the appropriateness, validity, and relia bility of the transforming process, For certain classes of decisions s uch as those that correspond to crisis management, even the most simpl istic version of a system presents problems for system developers-and hence decision makers, Unlike in highly structured decision settings w here precise models exist and high quality data is readily available, decision making in crisis settings involves ill-structured tasks which pose considerable problems for those responsible for the investment o f a limited information resource budget. This paper presents a framewo rk for analyzing the information monitoring decision support system tr adeoff dilemma that occurs in crisis management settings. It concludes with several insights and recommendations for future research.