Implementation of a Group Decision Support System Utilizing Collective Memory

Collective memory has been characterized as a socially articulated and maintained reality of the past—one form being organizational memory. The collective memory concept can also be specialized to a group level and used to support work groups engaged in repetitive decision-making activities. The advantages of capturing collective memory are many, including simplification of the process, codification of decision strategies, carryover of knowledge when group composition changes, etc. While there has been substantial research in group decision-making, the explicit use of collective memory to support repetitive decision-making has received less attention. This paper describes the development and implementation of a collective memory based environment for support of a multi-attribute, iterative decision process. The environment utilized hypermedia, groupware, and Intranet technologies. Results of its use are encouraging.