Some thirty years ago a new concept emerged in information technology literature and practice, namely the Decision Support System (DSS). Even though some people have been overenthusiastic about it, while others have claimed that DSS is a "new label", IT vendors used to take advantage of the fashion, and DSS concept has steadily advanced towards new methodological concepts, technical solutions and commercial products. All were meant to support and enhance human judgment in performing tasks which showed little structure. In recent years the change in the way of doing business (globalisation and liberalisation of production and markets, new competition criteria, etc.) together with advances of some IT domains (the development of global networks and the knowledge based systems) have determined new approaches to and favoured DSS. Moreover, the European Commission opened a particular R&D chapter on "Information Management and Decision Support" in the Domain 6 ("High Performance Computing and Networking" of their Information Technology Work Programme (ESPRIT).
edited by Patrick Humphreys, Liam Bannon, Piero Migliarese, Jean-Claude Pomerol and Andrew McCosh
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