Adoption of web-based group decision support systems: experiences from the field and future developments

Abstract

While organizations have massively adopted enterprise information systems to support business processes, business meetings in which key decisions are made about products, services and processes, are usually held without much support of information systems. This is remarkable as group decision support systems (GDSS) seems to fit for this purpose. They have existed for decades and modern versions benefit of web-based technologies, enabling low cost anyplace, any time and device independent meeting support. In this exploratory case research, we study nine organizations in four different adoption categories to learn more about the reasons for the relatively slow adoption of web-based GDSS. Using the Fit-Viability adoption framework we conduct interviews with organizations that have experience with using GDSS. We conclude that adopting GDSS requires considerable and carefully planned change of processes that are deeply grounded in the organization. Existing meeting routines need to be adapted. Introduction needs to be carefully planned and room for face-to-face meetings and creativity sessions away from the keyboard need to be built in depending on the type of meeting. Not all companies find the cost level affordable. Clear and convincing business cases are lacking. Still the added value is ranked highly and there are frequent and enthusiastic user organizations that may lead the way for others. Their success stories show others how to mitigate problems.