MAPPING THE INTELLECTUAL STRUCTURE OF RESEARCH IN DECISION-SUPPORT SYSTEMS THROUGH AUTHOR COCITATION ANALYSIS (1971-1993)

This study applies factor analysis of an author cocitation frequency m atrix derived from a database file that consists of a total of 23,768 cited reference records taken from 944 citing articles. Factor analysi s extracted eleven factors consisting of six major areas of DSS resear ch (group DSS, foundations, model management, interface systems, multi criteria DSS, and implementation) and five contributing disciplines (m ultiple criteria decision making, cognitive science, organizational sc ience, artificial intelligence, and systems science). This research pr ovides hard evidence that the decision support system has made meaning ful progress over the past two decades and is in the process of solidi fying its domain and demarcating its reference disciplines. Especially , much progress has been made in the subareas of model management such as representation, model base processing, model integration, and arti ficial intelligence application to model management leading towards th e development of a theory of models. To facilitate the transition from the pre- to post-paradigm period in DSS research, this study has comp leted important groundwork.