Abstract
This paper provides a critique of the traditional practice of developing decision analysis and decision support techniques founded m a linear model of choice to frame the decision problem and its “solution”.
Decision problem representation methods generally represent the problem in terms of some or all of the following five components: Alternatives or options, that is, different moulds in which the world around us will be cast as the result of our decision; the scope of these alternatives, which outlines the boundaries of the problem as conceived by the decision maker; the decision-makers’ preferences, reflecting their attitudes and values as well as their understandings of the interests they have in the problem they are trying to tackle; the logic of choice, that is, the argumentation process through which we are capable of interrelating all the other components to arrive at the final decision; Instrumental intentions of the choice, combining both the reasons about how we are planning to exploit the results and the ideas of how choice is to be implemented.
In the conventional linear analysis, the first two components represent the “objective reality” of the choice, while the third (and to a certain extent the fourth) component introduce the subjective dimension of it. “objective reality” and subjective preferences are inputs to the choice procedure, which completes the analysis, and so instrumental intentions are often neglected.
Instead, a circular model of choice is proposed, in which the representation of all the above components can be balanced, and in which the knowledge and subjectivity of all the participants involved in the decision making and implementation process may be considered.
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Nappelbaum, E.L. (1997). Systems logic for problem formulation and choice. In: Humphreys, P., Ayestaran, S., McCosh, A., Mayon-White, B. (eds) Decision Support in Organizational Transformation. IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-35348-7_15
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