Cognitive Style as a Basis for MIS and DSS Designs: Much ADO About Nothing?

George P. Huber
Additional contact information
George P. Huber: University of Wisconsin, Madison. Visiting Scholar, Execucom Systems Corp., Austin, Texas

Management Science, 1983, vol. 29, issue 5, 567-579

Abstract: It is commonly believed that the user's cognitive style should be considered in the design of Management Information Systems and Decision Support Systems. In contrast, an examination of the literature and a consideration of some of the broader issues involved in MIS and DSS design lead to the conclusions that: (1) the currently available literature on cognitive style is an unsatisfactory basis for deriving operational design guidelines, and (2) further cognitive style research is unlikely to provide a satisfactory body of knowledge from which to derive such guidelines. The article presents six specific bases for these two conclusions. From a manager's pespective, the outcome of the study is a suggestion: maintain a healthy skepticism if it is suggested that paper and pencil assessments of the user's cognitive style should be used as a basis for MIS or DSS designs. From a researcher's viewpoint, the study raises two questions: (1) If our research interest is MIS and DSS design, does it seem that further research in cognitive style is a wise allocation of our research resources? (2) If our research interest is cognitive style, does it seem that the use of cognitive style as a basis for MIS and DSS designs will become an important application area?

Keywords: management information systems; decision support systems; cognitive style (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1983
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.29.5.567 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:29:y:1983:i:5:p:567-579

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().