An empirical investigation of ODSS impact on individuals and organizations

Organizational Decision Support Systems (ODSS) are large decision aiding sy stems, which provide organization-wide support for business processes. An O DSS shares some characteristics with other management support systems, but it has distinctly different objectives, scope and components. Its goal to s upport both the individual and organizational level decision processes may require unique development and management approaches. Several case studies have been conducted to address this issue. However, no systematic investiga tion has been conducted to determine factors that influence the successful development and use of ODSS. We designed this study to investigate ODSS imp act both at the individual and organizational level based on several ODSS c urrently in use. Our findings indicate that in order to have a successful O DSS, management must pay attention to individual user needs and also have s everal organizational level coordinating mechanisms in place. User particip ation, support of management, and DSS system characteristics were found to be important determinants of ODSS success. Several factors at the organizat ional level, such as the use of steering committees and the extent of insti tutionalization of the system, were found to be correlated to ODSS success. The implications of these results for the management of ODSS and other org anization-wide systems are discussed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All ri ghts reserved.