GDSS RESEARCH - AN OVERVIEW AND HISTORICAL-ANALYSIS

Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) is a relatively new area of Info rmation Systems research, but some patterns have begun to emerge in th e focus of this research and in the approaches to conducting it. This article represents a substantial review of a large body of GDSS litera ture and an analysis of that Literature according to a specific classi fication scheme. The dimensions of the classification scheme include t he age of the research publication, the general research approach, the philosophy underlying the data collection, the type of GDSS support, whether the research is longitudinal, and the primary focus of the res earch, as well as a few demographic variables such as author and sourc e. The results of the literature analysis lead to recommendations to G DSS researchers by the authors of a need for greater use of the availa ble research approaches and other data analysis philosophies, a greate r emphasis on field work, more longitudinal research, and some changes in the focus of the research.