An Experimental Investigation Of The Relationship Between Decision Makers, Decision Aids and Decision Making Effort

AbstractThis paper reports the results of two laboratory experiments designed to assess the impact of decision aid use on effort expenditures by decision makers. The traditional assumption in the decision support systems (DSS) literature is that if decision makers are provided with expanded processing capabilities they will use them to analyze problems in more depth and as a result make better decisions. Empirical studies investigating the relationship between DSS and decision quality have not borne this out. The explanation for such outcomes could be found in behavioral decision making theories. The literature on behavioral decision making indicates that the conservation of effort may be more important than increased decision quality in some cases. If this is so, then the use of a decision aid may result in effort savings but not improved decision performance. The two experiments reported here compare the information processing effort expended by users of a decision aid designed to support preferential c...

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