The Nature of Organizational Decision Making and the Design of Decision Support Systems*

Today's Decision Support Systems (DSS) are almost invariably designed to function in rational, or rationalized, decision making environments. Many organizational environments, such as political environments or garbage can environments, are more accurately portrayed, however, with models other than the Rational Model. Can DSS be useful in such environments? What are the boundary conditions for the application of DSS? These are the questions addressed in this article.