Abstract
Decision makers and people in general, are constantly involved with understanding, formulating, and solving problems. Many of the problems faced by decision makers fall into the ill-structured/ill-defined category - as a contrasted with well-structured/well-defined problems. This is especially true of problems faced by strategic decision makers. These problems routinely challenge the cognitive capacities of managers. Managers meet these challenges with limited information-processing capabilities. Decision makers perform various activities that help them understand ill-structured problems. These activities to a large extent are "cognitive" in nature. It is argued that IS support provided to managers "through" their "cognitive orientations" might facilitate understanding of ill-structured problems. A new concept called the called the "cognitive lens" is used to describe these cognitive orientations from an IS perspective. In conjunction with this notion, a classification of IS support in terms of a continuum of inquiry modes is proposed. These inquiry modes - introspective, dialectic, and eclectic inquiry - operate on cognitive lenses stored and maintained in a "cognitive lens support system." The system architecture and the functional support required to facilitate the different inquiry modes are also described.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 55-71 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Decision Support Systems |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 1992 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Cognitive lens
- Cognitive lens support system
- Cognitive model
- Ill-structured problem
- Inquiry mode
- Problem understanding
- Strategic planning process
- Understanding-activities
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Management Information Systems
- Information Systems
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
- Information Systems and Management