USING GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION-SYSTEMS FOR DECISION-MAKING - EXTENDING COGNITIVE FIT THEORY TO MAP-BASED PRESENTATIONS

As the use of Geographical information Systems (GIS) by business becom es more common, we need to better understand when these systems are an d are not useful. This research uses a laboratory experiment to extend cognitive fit theory (Vessey 1991) to geographic tasks performed usin g either map-based presentations or tabular presentations. The experim ent found that decision makers using a map-based presentation made fas ter and more accurate decisions when working on a geographic task in w hich there were adjacency relationships among the geographic areas. De cision makers using a map-based presentation made faster but less accu rate decisions when working on a geographic task in which there were n o relationships among the geographic areas.