Normative predicates of next-generation management support systems

Popular literature on the design of management systems is dominated by those arguing the case for decision support system (DSS). The DSS approach is notable chiefly for its promise to accommodate information technology to the interests of particular organisations and ultimately to the preferences of individual decisionmakers. The problems with this approach, as well as the need for an alternative design methodology, the normative protocol, are discussed. This is distinct from the DSS platform in three major respects: (1) its employment of `structured' as opposed to casual design procedures; (2) its emphasis on universalistic as opposed to locally defined system requirements; and (3) its adoption of a compensatory (viz. accommodative) posture towards clients, such that decisionmaking procedures are made consistent with rationality criteria derived from modern management and decision science.