DECISION-MAKING IN MANAGEMENT-INFORMATION-SYSTEMS RESEARCH - THE UTILITY OF POLICY CAPTURING METHODOLOGY

Although decision-making represents a fundamental issue in management information systems (MIS), obtaining accurate assessments of the facto rs affecting employees' decisions may be difficult using traditional m ethods such as ratings and rankings. Policy capturing, a little-used m ethod in MIS, represents a potentially important alternative to more t raditional methods. After demonstrating that policy capturing has been underutilized in MIS, the paper illustrates the use of policy capturi ng in two decision-making contexts-computer training and software sele ction. These two studies contrast policy capturing results with more t raditional methods, and draw implications for research.