Effects of decision space information on MAUT-based systems that support purchase decision processes

This paper shows that decision makers often have a misconception of the decision space. The decision space is constituted by the relations among the attributes describing the alternatives available in a decision situation. The paper demonstrates that these misconceptions negatively affect the usage and perceptions of MAUT-based decision support systems. To overcome these negative effects, this paper proposes to use a visualization method based on singular value decomposition to give decision makers insights into the attribute relations. In a laboratory experiment in cooperation with Germany's largest Internet real estate website, this paper moreover evaluates the proposed solution and shows that our solution improves decision makers' usage and perceptions of MAUT-based decision support systems. We further show that information about the decision space ultimately affects variables relevant for the economic success of decision support system providers such as reuse intention and the probability to act as a promoter for the systems.