This editorial essay argues the design science decision support literature has unduly focused on developing technical systems when organizational problem solving and decision making often require socio-technical ones. Decision making in uncertain environments requires other aspects the technical view actively suppresses, such as effectiveness and innovation. We explore this in a three-step argument. First, we show the necessity of a socio-technical mindset using the example of how cholera was demonstrated to be a waterborne disease in 1854 London in two independent investigations - one technical and one socio-technical. The insights from the socio-technical investigation were ultimately found correct; the technical one arrived at a completely wrong conclusion. Second, we argue authors are discouraged from publishing research on socio-technical design artifacts. We use spreadsheets as an example, and show developers prefer publishing their incremental contributions in other outlets. Puzzlingly, researchers prefer publishing technical design science contributions in DSS journal given their preponderance in our pages. Thus, in our third step, we argue the lack of socio-technical design science research arises from a mismatch of evaluation criteria. We suggest DSS journal cultivate a subset of editorial board members with a socio-technical mindset to apply the appropriate criteria while encouraging submissions of this type.

中文翻译：

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将“社会”回归决策支持研究：超越纯粹的技术思维方式


这篇社论文章认为，当组织解决问题和决策通常需要社会技术问题时，设计科学决策支持文献过度关注开发技术系统。在不确定的环境中做出决策需要技术观点积极抑制的其他方面，例如有效性和创新。我们在三步论证中探讨这一点。首先，我们以 1854 年伦敦的两项独立调查（一项技术调查和一项社会技术调查）中霍乱如何被证明是一种水传播疾病为例，展示了社会技术思维方式的必要性。社会技术调查的见解最终被发现是正确的;技术专家得出了一个完全错误的结论。其次，我们认为不鼓励作者发表关于社会技术设计工件的研究。我们以电子表格为例，表明开发人员更喜欢在其他渠道发布他们的增量贡献。令人费解的是，研究人员更喜欢在 DSS 期刊上发表技术设计科学贡献，因为他们在我们的页面上占据主导地位。因此，在我们的第三步中，我们认为社会技术设计科学研究的缺乏是由于评估标准的不匹配造成的。我们建议 DSS 期刊培养一部分具有社会技术思维的编委会成员，以应用适当的标准，同时鼓励此类投稿。