Voting tools in group decision support systems: theory and implementation

Group decision making is essential in organisations. Group decision support systems (GDSS) can aide groups in making decisions by providing tools and process support. Voting tools have been considered valuable assets in groups' decision processes. However, there is an insufficiency of theory and experiments in voting research in GDSS particularly web‐based. This paper makes the following contributions: first, a theoretical framework for studying and using voting in GDSS is presented. This framework can be used as a basis for future research and applications of voting in GDSS. Next, the factors related to voting are carefully examined. This is followed by proposing and discussing classifications of voting methods. This paper also examines issues for implementing advanced voting tools in GDSS and suggests specific methods of augmenting voting functionalities in existing GDSS.